The Mantelpiece Chronicles
by rtwofan
Summary: --Compa. To Partial Eclipse--: While he's unpacking his new house, Sylar opens a box that Peter intended to be kept secret. As Sylar digs deeper through the past, he uncovers secrets about Peter and Claire's history that he never thought possible.
1. House of The Rising Sun

Title: The Mantelpiece Chronicles  
Chapter: 1/10  
Rating: PG-13  
Pairings: Peter/Claire. Sylar/Niki (hey, read the first one and it'll make sense, heh)  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything  
Summary: (Companion To _Partial Eclipse_)While he's unpacking his new house, Sylar opens a box that Peter intended to be kept secret. As Sylar digs deeper through the past, he uncovers secrets about Peter and Claire's history that he never thought possible.

Well, this almost didn't get posted cause my Internet has been out all day long. But the Internet gods have granted me a little access to post this, as intended, on March 17. I'll be posting every Monday from now on, until the story is done, and then right after I'll begin the "official" sequel )

Also, if you haven't read PE, then go ahead to the link above and check it out. Of course, if you don't have time, you can always check out my Everything You Need To Know About Partial Eclipse guide, and then you'll be set to read this XD Either way, Thanks for reading!

**Part One**

"**House of the Rising Sun"**

xxx

Multi-colored fragments of light peppered Gabriel Monroe's white walls. The tiny rainbows were simply a result of the sun reflecting off the Golden Gate Bridge, a phenomenon free to everyone who could see the bay from home. But Gabriel never looked at the glittering lights with a calm smile and applause to Mother Nature. He just stared, wondering about all the scientific properties of refraction, the electromagnetic spectrum… About how even God could be given a logical and researched _explanation._

If, the man bitterly amended, there actually_ is_ a God. 

Gabriel, known more familiarly as "Sylar" to himself and others, was a man of science. Though, it hadn't always been that way. For the past six and a half years, he'd straddled the fence between faith and data. 

After all, Sylar could move things with his mind, shoot icicles out of his hands, and had more reason then anyone else to doubt the presence of a higher being. Yet, at the same time, through the thicket of science and evolution that was engrained in his genetic code, a quiet voice always reminded him of something only God could have done. 

God had brought him Peter, and that was enough for Sylar to level with for the time being. It was the single thin string tethering Sylar to the crucifix, when anvils on his feet pulled him down to the world of algorithms and theories. 

Then Peter died, and that string finally snapped. 

xxx

_There was a house in New Orleans_

_They called the Rising Sun_

_And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy_

_And God, I know I'm one_

-House of the Rising Sun, by The Animals

xxx

**Three Years Ago**

"Well," Sylar sighed. "I suppose you could call it…roomy." 

His mouth slashed with obvious chagrin as he stared upon his new 'home.' The turn-of-the-century wallpaper, dusty chandeliers, and lingerie older then Dick Clark lying everywhere were all features that Peter omitted from his excited descriptions. 

"C'mon," Peter said brightly. "It's a historic Boston townhouse. You likedthe American Revolution, right?"

"It's a _bordello," _Sylar choked back. "And it clearly doesn't date back to the 1700's. 1890 at earliest." 

Though his brother had already moseyed into the living room, several suitcases in hand, Sylar didn't move a hair from his stance in the doorway. 

"Look at all the bedrooms though!" Peter pointed towards the upstairs balcony, where the doors to several rooms were visible. "There's space for everyone. I bet we could save double the amount of people now."

Sylar's face still remained stoic in contrast to his brother's cheerfulness, but he came to his senses, taking a few careful steps towards Peter. He set down his tattered cardboard box of belongings, the only thing he brought with him, next to Peter's small mountain of suitcases. 

Peter inhaled deeply, and then sneezed. For the first time since entering the former house of harlotry, he looked slightly disappointed. 

"It does need dusting," he admitted.

"It needs a bath," Sylar weakly added.

Peter swiveled around to face his comrade, eyes sparking with confusion, frustration.

"What's gotten into you? Usually you're Johnny Sunshine."

Crows feet crinkled his eyes as he glared up at Sylar's sheepish expression. There was an uncomfortable silence between the twins that Sylar tentatively broke.

"I'm sorry," he muttered uselessly. "I know you're trying hard, but this," he gestured vaguely around them, "this just isn't _home, _PeterIt doesn't _feel _like a home."

Peter gradually relaxed and went from irritated to sympathetic. Apparently, his heartstrings as a nurse hadn't all been snapped quite yet. "It will. It just needs to be lived in a little. Trust me for once, will you? I haven't felt at home in a year and a half either, but there's some real potential in this place. I know it."

Sylar yearned to retort back that he didn't _want _potential. He didn't want _sooner or later, _he didn't want _trust me, _and he certainly wanted a better brother then this over-idealistic, self-righteous _Peter _guy who had found him in the desert a couple months ago. 

But Sylar, though his thoughts were bitter, always upheld a particular decorum of gentlemanliness on the exterior. And thus, he said nothing.

xxx

It took a long time to unpack their boxes; to schlep suitcases and cartons of mostly useless crap into a worn-down bordello, without a drop of Gatorade or three men and a truck. 

98 of their belongings were Peter's, seeing as the young man had come from a fruitful New York apartment and a fancy family, whereas Sylar's only possessions were what he could scrape together from his lonely one-room shack. That was the greatest source of silently boiling conflict between the two brothers: their lifestyles. 

Sylar knew nothing about his family. He'd never sat down to dinner on Thanksgiving and helped cut the turkey with his father. He had never celebrated a birthday, or sent a Christmas card, or given a chaste kiss to his mother's cheek before bed. No, according to Peter, Sylar was the bad guy, the man found alone in the sewers of New York three years before. The man forced to run from the cops, his past, and the terrors of the world which he knew not. 

And Sylar surmised that even though Peter _tried, _he did, the kid really _tried…_there was no way a pretty boy do-gooder from the elite district could ever, ever understand that. 

xxx

"Got any threes?"

Peter hesitated before grumbling a curse and sliding a faded three of hearts across the carpet, over to Sylar. The amnesiac had to smile a bit smugly, glancing up at Peter's full hand of mismatched cards, and then down at his own remaining two.

"Can't we just play poker?" Peter insisted for the third time. "I'm pretty lousy at this game."

"What?" Sylar arched an eyebrow. "You haven't met a psychic somewhere along the way?"

"Yeah, I wish," Peter replied with an accompanying scoff under his breath. He threw his cards down onto the old oak coffee table and stood up from his moth-eaten recliner (included with the rent of the estate at no extra charge). 

Sylar groaned under his breath, disappointed as he tossed his now-worthless stack next to Peter's. "We could always go back to unpacking." 

He felt Peter's quizzical eyes burning holes into his back as he stood up and walked over to a stack of cardboard boxes. Sylar moved to rip open the tape on the top container, but when Peter realized exactly _what_ it was Sylar was opening, he nearly body slammed his sibling in a zealous effort to preserve the box's sanctity. 

"No-no-no! Stop!" he cried. Within seconds, Peter's upper body was sprawled across the cardboard flaps, preventing Sylar from seeing anything inside. 

"What?" Sylar's eyes flitted around, looking for a big label on the box that said "Porn Collection" or something. But all he could find were the letters "C.B" scrawled on the side in Peter's sharp penmanship, and that wasn't enough information for Sylar to see how everything _ticked _in a situation like this. 

"Don't you _ever _open this box, okay?" Peter demanded, his voice unusually imposing. Sylar took a step back, his unconventionally handsome features contorted with bewilderment. 

"Alright…I do suppose it's none of my business," he obliged in slow, cautious tones. Peter exhaled, limbs going limp, and he pulled himself off the carton. With flushed cheeks and a chest that rose and fell with heavy breaths, he quickly picked up the box and steered towards the staircase. 

"I'm gonna take it to my room," he muttered uselessly. "You haven't picked one out yet, have you?"

Sylar shrugged, but the tension from Peter's sudden outburst still showed in his clenched muscles. "No. You can have any of them…I…I don't care." 

Peter nodded mechanically and started up the steps, with the mystery box in his arms and a frown etched into his face from then on. 

When Peter reached his room, Sylar heard him lock the door with a _click_.

xxx

Sylar was still watching snowflakes of light dust his carpet and walls when he thought of that mystery box for the first time in three years. 

In all the time he knew Peter, the subject never came up again. The carton that Petrelli had so forcefully tried to protect stayed a secret, as it should've, and Sylar still to the day didn't know what was inside.

A spark of curiosity bloomed in the back of his mind, one that he longed to starch. Sylar had inherited all of Peter's belongings after the funeral. He knew for a fact that he'd loaded Peter's "CB" box onto the moving cart himself, though he hadn't recalled its significance at the time. It was at the very top shelf of his walk-in closet now, untouched, unopened, and absolutely ignored until now. 

Sylar wondered how morally unethical it would be to rummage through it now that Peter was dearly departed. On one hand, it seemed vastly disrespectful, but in all realism…Peter was a pile of dust in the urn which rested on Sylar's mantelpiece. Would he _really _care?

Sylar forced himself to be emotionless and stone-faced as he got up off the floor, unconsciously headed towards the bedroom closet. 

He didn't even realize where he was or what he was doing until his hands were filled with sandpaper-like cardboard, the sides of Peter's clandestine box. A note of doubt was throbbing in the frontal lobe of Sylar's gifted brain, the little cricket of his consciousness that felt slightly bad about abandoning the dead's wishes.

He shook off the feeling and opened it before he could change his mind.

A small cloud of dust assaulted Sylar's nose and he coughed violently. But once he wiped the skuzzy film off his eyes and held his breath to lean over the box, the deep dark secrets that Peter had tried so anxiously to protect were finally revealed.

Sylar was staring at a box of…junk. 

He didn't know how long he simply sat there, mentally sorting out the mishmash of random memorabilia that Peter stashed away in this makeshift safe. There were a couple journals, lots of receipts, a tarnished silver ring, empty envelopes, stained letters, a couple photographs…the whole collection was like a time capsule of all things Peter. Or, that's at least what Sylar assumed at first glance.

He gingerly picked out a few of the photographs and was astonished to discover who was actually _in_ them. These were pictures of Peter; they were all of _Claire. _

Sylar scooted back and turned the box around, peering at that faded label which had once been such an enigma to him. C.B. _Claire Bennet, _he realized.

He rummaged through the stuff some more and found this to be a haunting pattern with all the other items. Peter had receipts to coffee shops and restaurants and to a place called "Emerald City", all of which showed items bought for two people, not one. After all Sylar's snooping, the only true mystery that remained was the spotty silver ring from the bottom of the box, with a small diamond in the middle. It was an old-fashioned ring, a _girl's _old fashioned ring.

Sylar looked to the inscription on the inside, and it seemed to be a lot more recent, more freshly etched, than the actual ring itself. 

_To Claire….from your hero. _

Gabriel's stomach lurched and he carefully set the silver hoop back in the box. His mind reeled with this discovery, all the possibilities exploding around his head like shimmering fireworks. He'd known since the day he met Peter that Claire had been his brother's "niece" for a couple years, and that Peter had always had some sort of unsuitable, unrequited affection for the girl. But this…this looked like some sort _of secret relationship…_

Sylar knew his brother had been odd, but dating a girl he thought at the time was his niece?

However, the events of the past couple months came back to him, and a small frown melted his shocked expression. Peter and Claire, when they'd been in Sylar's company for the short while preceding their deaths, did _not _have the aura of former lovers. Rather, their passion was more that of a restrained couple who wanted to be together, but never had the opportunity. 

Sylar was back to square one again, except even more confused than in the beginning.

Yet…the story was in front of him, wasn't it? All these journals and letters and memorabilia that could show him the truth about why Peter and Claire came to be the way they were…

The amnesiac winced, almost able to feel Peter's spirit glaring at him in distaste. No, those records were private, and it was none of his business. He shouldn't have even opened it in the first place.

Though, as soon as Sylar flipped the box's cover shut and gave the thing a commanding shove to the back of the closet, he was already wrenching it open again seconds later, peering down into Peter's lost history. His intelligent eyes shined with curiosity and guilt, but maybe this one wrong could make a right.

If he got through this without feeling ashamed at offending Peter, perhaps it was the same as truly admitting that his brother _died. _

So with a deep breath and a silent plead for forgiveness, Sylar picked up one little black journal at random and opened to page one. 

_**October 7, 2007**_

_Claire and I had coffee at Rafferty's to celebrate our little "anniversary" today. Which resulted in the most humiliating-but-still-kind-of-hilarious conversation of my entire life…_

xxx

**To be continued…**


	2. Technicolor Eyes

Brown eyes shied away from blue as Peter looked away in mortification

Thank you to everyone who posted such kind response to the first chapter! As usual, I don't own any of this, and I'm just borrowing the characters. I promise I'll return them all nice and untouched when this is done. Well, untouched except for a few bite marks XD

**Part Two**

"**Technicolor Eyes"**

xxx

_I like you; You like me_

_There's something wrong with this picture_

_Let's turn it upside down so we can see_

"Technicolor Eyes" by Backseat Goodbye

xxx

Petrellis are not happy. They aren't spunky, they aren't playful, they aren't dreamers.

Take Nathan for example. Cynical, determined, no-nonsense. Pretty much the cookie-cutter outline of his mother, Angela. His father was the same way, except with a dollop of depression and delusions of grandeur.

Even Heidi, who married into the family, had the same raven hair and too much makeup, politician's wife of course.

Peter used to be the lamb. The innocent white lamb in a field of black sheep.

But then Claire came along. Claire came along and he finally had someone to be lonely with.

xxx

Brown eyes shied away from sea-green as Peter looked downward in chagrin. Claire sighed and, under the cafe table, nudged his leg with the tip of her foot.

"Come on. Just get it over with."

Peter bit back a puppyish whimper before barely muttering, "When I was ten, Nathan dressed me up like Raggedy Ann and his friends took pictures."

Claire's jaw dropped before she broke out into a grin. "No WAY. Where are they? I wanna see!"

"What are you talking about? Claire, I _burned _those photos, fifteen years ago."

The blonde girl slumped back into a pout. "Shoot. You're no fun."

Peter finally relaxed, tearing off a piece of the gigantic sugar cookie between them. He took a sip of his homemade Rafferty's Irish cream soda and then set it down, a totally no-nonsense aura washing over his features.

"Your turn," Peter said bluntly. "Spill."

Claire groaned. "Oh, please. I don't have anything to top _that."_

"You're a cheerleader who can grow back her limbs," Peter reminded her, lowering his voice so the other customers couldn't hear. "I'm sure you can think of _something _humiliating."

"I'm not a cheerleader anymore," she half-heartedly corrected him, before starting to chew over his other statement. What to tell him? How about what she really thought of spanky pants? Er, no. What about that time she stole one of Sandra's saucy romance novels in middle school and giggled with all her air headed pom-pom girlfriends over it? No, that was lame, and would put even more proof into Peter's mind that she was, gasp,a _girl._

Because, for some reason "niece" and "female" never really seemed to be equivalent in Peter's eyes. Rather than treating her like he would any other girl her age, he picked on her like a little brother rather than the cheerleader he saved one year ago to the day.

"There's one thing," Claire eventually admitted, already starting to turn red. "It has to do with you."

Uh-oh. He knew where this was going.. The unresolved pre-relation chemistry that Peter feared to speak of was finally rearing its ugly head for the first time.

He gulped, immediately regretting his needling of her.

"Promise you won't get mad?" Claire pleaded, giving him a guilty gaze. "It was a really long time ago. Like, the very first time we met."

Peter's gut tightened. "What? Did you have a…," he lowered his voice. Best to get this out of the way quick and painlessly as possible, like ripping off a Band-aid. "Did you have…_feelings _or something? Cause Claire, that's no big deal, we didn't_ know_ back then, and-."

Claire heavy snorting interrupted him. "No offense, but _God _no. It's sort of the opposite."

Off Peter's bewildered and slightly worried expression, Claire finally felt that extra push off the cliff of safety, into the pit of mortification.

"When we first met…I, actually, um…totally thought you were a pedophile."

"What?!" Peter's eyes went as wide as UFOs. His voice cracked and he waved his arms around off the chaos erupting in his mind. "Wha? _Why?"_

"Well," Claire began, blushing and rushed, "you were lurking around the school at a Homecoming game staring at Jackie's pictures, and you obviously bumped into me on purpose, and you were wearing that coat like all those pedophiles wear. AND you kept asking me about Jackie, you wouldn't stop…_stopping me _by saying all this nice crap so I would nevermake it down that hallway, and you were _so _lying when you said you were an alumniNot to mention you had those emoish pedophile bangs."

Peter absently ran a hand over his freshly shorn crew cut, where the boy bangs of yesterday were long gone. He practically broke under the weight of everything that his niece just exposited, cause man…that was definitely not what he'd anticipated.

"What about after I saved you?" Peter commented anxiously. "You were nice to me in the jail cell."

Claire bit back giggles, but when she saw his shell-shocked features, she covered them with a cough. "I was thankful you saved my life and all, don't get me wrong. It's just, I thought the reason you got arrested was because you were some sex offender wanted in several states, and the police were on the trail of you and everything just happened to show up at the game."

"Wow Claire," Peter wryly replied. "Your logic there is just _exceptional." _

She kicked him in the shin right as he took a sip of cream soda, causing the amber drink to slosh against the back of his esophagus. He choked and set the bottle down, coughing into the back of his hand, before deciding to actually behave himself for the day.

"I guess that is kind of funny, though," Peter mused after he had cleared his throat, reflecting back to the day after Homecoming. "That blonde FBI chick, Agent Hanson? She thought the same thing."

"You think it's funny that people think you're a pedophile?" Claire asked quizzically. Peter snorted.

"No," he quipped. "That was a sarcastic sort of funny, Claire. Not like…'Ha! Everyone thinks I'm a rapist!' funny."

He abruptly stopped his rant when he noticed that other people throughout Rafferty's were starting to stare at them, aghast.

"Don't worry," Claire assured him, with a comforting pat to his hand. "The feeling went away…eventually."

Peter was clearly unamused, but he still couldn't quite be upset. It was almost impossible to become mad at Claire. Frustrated? Boy, all the time. But never _angry. _

"Yeah, maybe that whole 'saving your life' thing cured you of your screwed up freak-dar," Peter retorted, rolling his eyes. It wasn't often that he pulled that card of the deck, though he didn't feel entirely guilty. They bothknew how many times Claire had saved _him_, in addition to him doing the same. By this point in their relationship, they weren't even keeping count anymore.

If one needed saving, the other one always, always came to the rescue.

"It doesn't really seem like a year ago, does it?" Claire thought aloud, her voice growing more mouse-like and solemn. Peter's eyes softened as he studied his young friend, his cheerleader, his niece.

"Not really," he agreed. "But it kind of _does, _too. Everything felt so different back then. We were both different people."

"Yeah, we weren't related," Claire scoffed gently. She meant it as a light joke, just a small observation, but a deeper gravity hung in the air that made both their skin crawl.

"No matter how things turned out," Peter began after the awkwardness had washed on by, "I'll never regret going to Odessa."

Claire smirked. "Duh. You would've been killed months ago if you hadn't."

Peter's lips pursed, and for a second, he almost looked hurt. "That too… But mostly I just…I'm glad I met _you._"

The girl's cheeks flushed as they always did when he said something along those lines. "_We saved each other; it's destiny," _and "_I felt like I was a part of something when I found you," _being among them.

"I think you're the only one who really believed in me, before I even knew your name," Peter continued with a humble smile. He held up his nearly empty bottle of cream soda, beckoning her to raise her white chocolate latte. "So thanks."

He nudged her mug with his soda and it made a chime, the sharp note still lingering in the air long after their drinks had touched.

xxx

_**October 7, 2007**_

_Claire and I had coffee at Rafferty's to celebrate our little "anniversary" today. Which resulted in the most humiliating-but-still-kind-of-hilarious conversation of my entire life._

_Apparently, I'm "Would-Be-Pedophile" Peter, now. Oh, well. You know what they say about first impressions and all._

_Cause my first impression of Claire sure as hell wasn't right either…_

…_or, eh, legal in the continental U.S._

_So see? Just goes to show that all that love at first sight stuff? It stays inside the TV, guys. _

xxx

Gabriel Monroe sat back against the wall of his closet, Peter's well-thumbed journal splayed open on his lap. His teeth chewed at his bottom lip while the cogwheels in his brain tried to absorb what he'd just read. So, as of October 2007, Claire and Peter were still platonic. Of course, Peter's feelings were apparently a little more risqué than that, but was Sylar's late brother merely talking about first impressions, or the emotions flowing through his veins at _the time_?

He needed another side to this. Peter's point of view may have been all well and good, but this was a two-sided relationship arc that Sylar had embarked on. He needed to get inside the heads of _both _his friends. But whether or not he had Claire's own journals lying around in one of the many unopened boxes surrounding him, he wasn't certain. Heck, he didn't even know if the girl kept a diary in the first place.

Something surprised him an awful lot about the fact that _Peter _kept one, though. His brother was always _doing _something, always saving someone or bedding a damsel or giving himself a blood transfusion with Bacardi…not that Gabriel didn't know his brother better, for he was sure that Peter was always the compassionate type, but still…

The only way to find out the whole truth, he decided, was to hunt down one of Claire's own journals. And if she didn't have one, then Sylar would have to stay content in reading the rest of his twin's chronicles alone. In the end, what did it matter, really? Dead men- and women- tell no tales.

xxx

_**October 7, 2007**_

_Today is the anniversary of a lot of things. One year ago, I saw someone die in front of me for the first time. One year ago, I told my dad about my healing abilities._

_Most importantly, one year ago, I met Peter. _

_I know he's a nurse and all, but I was still surprised he remembered. It's not a day I thought he really cared about. It's probably not chock full of good memories for __him__. October 7, 2006 was the last time he saw Simone Deveaux alive…the first time he died and came back to life…right before he got arrested…_

_Poor Peter. At least I had a good__** morning**__ on Homecoming._

_But he asked _me _out to lunch to celebrate. CELEBRATE. Like it's a birthday or something. And when I asked him about why he wanted to drink mochas at an Irish café downtown on the anniversary of such a nasty day, all he said was, "It wasn't all bad."_

_He arched an eyebrow, cause he's Peter, and then he walked away to grab his car keys. And I could almost hear him thinking at me, "Figure it out, Claire." _

xxx

After and hour and a half of rabid digging through the small city of moving boxes that Sylar sat in, he finally found a single journal written in Claire's hand. Unlike Peter, who had a few journals, one for every year, Claire's solitary diary ranged from mid-2006 all the way up to 2010 before the pages became nothing but crisp paper and empty lines. Apparently, she wasn't much of a journal person.

Sylar skipped the first ten pages or so and immediately jumped to October, where he had just finished up Claire's parallel telling of The Homecoming Anniversary. And after reading through Claire's deepest thoughts and emotions about the worst night of her life, Sylar started feeling guilty. _Damn _guilty.

He was the monster that killed her best friend. The one that threw Peter off a balcony. The one that got Peter arrested, and the one who was the whole cause for this "anniversary" ordeal. However, even through Sylar's shame, he started to feel a little more connected to his friends' pasts. If it weren't for him, Peter and Claire never would have met. They never would have sat down at a nice coffee shop and exchanged some innocent banter. They never would have fallen in love in that week preceding their deaths, as it was clear on both sides that two very similar infatuations were just starting to pop up in the history pages that Sylar moseyed through.

Plus, they both would have died, a long, long time ago too, if Homecoming hadn't occurred. So maybe, for all Sylar's stains in his past, there was some just purpose in the complete thing. Jackie Wilcox died, but Peter and Claire lived, and loved, and finally found each other. They lost blood that night, but each gained a confidante and a best friend. And eventually, a brother in Gabriel Sylar Monroe.

And as if the facts didn't get any _more _eerily tangible, Sylar then spotted a small receipt in the bottom corner of Peter's box, for one white chocolate latte, a cream soda, and a sugar cookie.

xxx

**To be continued…**


	3. Emerald City

Part Three

**Thanks to all of the lovely reviews! You guys rock!**

**Part Three**

"**Emerald City"**

xxx

After a couple hours sitting in the closet, enraptured by the lost history of Peter and Claire, Sylar's legs and spine discovered a deeper meaning for the word "sore." Before he knew it, the sun was already below the horizon and Sylar realized he couldn't hermit out in this tiny room forever. So he tossed all of Claire's things into Peter's box, and then took it into the living room.

This was where he sat now, on the much comfier couch, surrounded by the contents of the past. And Sylar, obsessive about puzzles as he was, even dug up a plain composition book and a pen to take notes. Because, previously unbeknownst to him, the quest to unravel this mystery was actually becoming quite difficult.

Sylar flipped through both Peter and Claire's journals simultaneously, trying to line them up with each other. But because of Claire's infrequent and sporadic posting, there wasn't a lot paralleled between the two diaries. Sylar was lucky if he could find entries within the same _month _written by both Peter and Claire, let alone the same actual event.

Then things started looking up around the 'February's of 2008. Claire and Peter's entries were only eleven days apart:

_**February 5, 2008**_

_So Nathan won Big Tuesday. I remember two months ago, when he said he wanted to run for president, I laughed._

_But today, when ten states called him a hero, it was hard to even smile as me and Claire stood behind him at the podium._

_I thought Charles Deveaux said__ I____would save the world._

_**February 14, 2008**_

_Freddie and I broke up today. Yeah, on Valentine's Day. I think he did that to "hurt" me, but all I really feel is relieved._

_At least I can organize my DVD collection in the "Claire Way" instead of alphabetical order. Hook and Spider-Man stay at eye level. Romeo and Juliet goes on the bottom shelf._

_And I might just put Lolita on . _

Yet Sylar still sighed and put away his reading glasses.Though Peter's commentary on politics and Claire's predictable love life were mildly interesting topics, the man in San Francisco had yet to find any close-in-date rambles pertaining to_ both_ of them.

He was pretty prepared to call it a night. The twinkling lights of the city were already starting to bleed into his apartment, making a planetarium out of his blank walls. Plus, Sylar had a job interview the next day, _and _lunch with Niki. But just when he was about to stack the journals neatly on the table and give it all up for the day…

…he found April 7th

xxx

_She's been staring down the demons_

_Who've been screaming she's just another so-and-so_

_Another so-and-so_

_You are golden_

_You are golden, child._

"Golden" by Switchfoot

xxx

_**April 7, 2008**_

_I've been waiting for my eighteenth birthday all my life and I ended up sleeping through most of it. Oh, sue me._

_Peter woke me at 2:30, but I still didn't get out of bed right away. I told him I was an adult now and I could wake up when I damn well wanted._

_His face went weird, but he did leave me alone, at least for a while. I couldn't go back to sleep after that. _

xxx

When the clock struck 2:43, Claire sheets stopped feelingsoft.

She groaned and rolled over, trying to regain her comfy position. Peter had come in earlier and she had moved, and her whole arrangement of covers and pillows got all bent out of shape. But as much as she wanted to blame it on her uncle, in reality, her body was just perfectly conscious after sixteen full hours of sleep. It had had_ enough _rest

The girl- or as today would have it, the _young woman- _turned on her back and stared at the ceiling, now utterly wide awake. She hadn't really expected to spend her eighteenth birthday this way, but where was the instruction manual that told her what she _should _do? She still wasn't old enough to drink, so partying was out of the question. She didn't smoke, so she there was no point in using her new right to buy cigarettes. It wasn't Election Day, so she couldn't vote. And of course, Claire had no interest in porn, so there was no point in buying that either.

What had seemed like a wave of rights that came with an eighteenth birthday ended up only being a few free tickets to boring sin. So was that why they called it being an 'adult' now? Did the right to indulge in a few cheap tricks suddenly make her _grown-up, _rather than all the _other _things she'd done already: save the world, wake up on an autopsy table, see someone killed in front of her…

The blonde cheerleader/girl/young woman/freak of nature sat upright in her bed and rubbed her temples. The whole 'thinking' process in general? Now was not a good time.

She noticed something moving in her peripheral vision. Peter was leaning on the door frame again, in a casual white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and loose black jeans. Claire's sight fell to his wrist, where one finger absently tapped the face of his watch.

"Are you really gonna spend your whole birthday in bed?"

Claire slumped back down and pulled the covers over her face. "I'm gonna have to if you keep interrupting my sleep cycle," she grumbled.

A sudden pressure appeared by her legs, and when she peeked out from under the sheets, Peter was sitting beside her. He had a hand behind his back, hiding _something _from her view. Curiosity gnawed at Claire's insides like a cat stuck in a paper bag, and eventually, she sat up with a frustrated huff.

"Fine," she moaned. "I'll get up!"

Peter smiled and pulled his hand out from behind him, revealing a small wrapped box. "Then I guess I can give you this."

Claire carefully took the box from his open palm, her gaze flitting suspiciously between him and the gift. With nimble hands and a vacant expression, Claire peeled back the wrapping and opened the velvet box, fully expecting some sort of generic diamond necklace, or pair of pearl earrings. Peter did love Vermeer.

And for a second, a single _split_ second, she thought, she hoped rather, she'd see a diamond ring. But only for a second.

What was _actually _in the box was much less flashy and glamorous, but all the more valuable. It was a cobalt card with a Visa sign on it and a little gold marking in the upper hand corner that said 500.

"Peter…?"

"Visa gift card," he automatically explained. "I put five-hundred bucks on it, but if you use it all up today, I'll put more on it for you."

The girl- _woman_- looked up from the laminated card, to her uncle. "This is too much," she softly replied, suddenly mellowed and humbled. "And how did you even afford…where'd you get the…?"

"It doesn't matter," Peter shrugged. "You don't turn eighteen every day, okay? Basically, until midnight, you can have absolutely_ anything_ you want until the money in my pocket runs out." He smirked a bit. "I tried to get you up so you could get an early start, but I guess you'll just have to shop twice as fast now."

Claire smiled weakly, hands trembling slightly as they held Peter's gift. It_ really _was too much, especially after how crabby she'd been to him all morning. And it _really _wasn't about the money, either. Nathan and Angela were constantly showering her with Chanel and Gucci, more out of necessity than love, and she had more upper scale clothing than she knew what to do with. Mostly, the fact that Peter, a minimum wage hospice nurse, just sacrificed a month's salary for her to have a dream birthday…

That meant more than anything.

"Get dressed," he instructed, getting off the bed and heading towards the hallway. "And start thinking of where you want to go first."

_Gee, _Claire internally snorted. _How do you pick a 'first' in New York?_

xxx

Peter Petrelli was not endowed with super-strength (yet), but as he carried Claire's half-dozen bags of electronics, books, and shoes down Canal Street…damn if he wished he'd met Superman somewhere along the line.

It was nighttime and the restaurants around them glowed with colorful neon. They were headed towards the car, where Peter could get relieved of his cargo. Er…_her _cargo that is; the same six shopping bags that he was nagged into holding. Not to mention the fact that he was now wearing black slacks, a forest green dress shirt made of pure silk, and a cashmere jacket in James Bond's favorite color. Claire was dressed equally as fancy, a tight obsidian cocktail dress hugging her curves and criss-crossing across her back. They'd changed into these new clothes a few stores back, to Peter's upset, making it even more uncomfortable to lug thirty pounds of _crap _up a hill in midtown.

Alas. He did ask for this after all, so he bore his struggles with a tight, sincere smile and a stiffened backbone. At the very least, she could admire his talent for masquerade.

The last ten feet to the Lincoln were the absolute toughest, but Peter still managed to cross them with a firm resolve. Claire used the button pad on their key chain to pop open the trunk for him, so he could unceremoniously toss Claire's new stuff into the back. Peter resisted the need to sigh in relief, as well as the urge to glare at the man walking by who made a not-so-subtle _whip_ noise in his direction.

Peter slammed down the lid of the trunk and turned to his niece. "Where now?"

Claire's hand instinctively went to her stomach. "I'm _starving," _she groaned. "Shopping makes me hungry."

Peter nodded and crossed around the other side of the car, before opening the passenger door for her. "Good enough. Hop in. I'll take you anywhere."

Claire smiled. "Thanks Jeeves, but there _is_ a joint right over there that doesn't seem, too skeevy." She pointed across the street to a corner building that was bathed in electric green. "It's pretty fancy. At least we wouldn't be overdressed."

Peter shifted his shoulders in indifference. He'd never been in this…'Emerald City' as the sparkling sign advertised it as, but from the outside, Claire seemed to be correct. There was no loud music, no random drunk people stumbling out of it. All they saw were several well-dressed folks slipping through the frosted-glass doors, passing a burly bouncer.

Peter felt a surge of defiance shoot from his head to his feet. "You know what?," he grinned at Claire,  
"You're right; let's go. If you wanna eat with Rudy Giuliani on your birthday, you've got it."

He held out an elbow to her and she linked her arm with his, snuggling closer to the warm material of his jacket. It was a typical April night in New York: fifty-five degrees made even worse with the cold whooshes of cars zooming by. Peter and Claire made haste to cross the street arm-in-arm, but not before Peter slipped off his jacket and wrapped it around her slim shoulders. She blushed in thanks and gratefully took his arm again, for Peter's support was the only thing keeping Claire from stumbling over in those super high stilettos.

A couple flashes of ID later, both proving that they were at least eighteen, and Peter and Claire were within the walls of the elite. Yet, just like in _The Wizard of Oz _itself, there seemed to be a man behind the curtain here, too.

Perhaps a rowdy teenaged boy would bask in pumping energy (or maybe just the pumping) of Emerald City on their eighteenth birthday, but hardly a girl. Hardly a girl like Claire Bennet, especially when said girl was on the arm of her uncle.

Cause basically, they'd slipped up.

It wasn't so obvious at first. They got their waiter, their menus, their booth. They got funny glances from older men and they got their playful Looks all good and exchanged between each other. And they also got confusion, cause…why was there a stage, and why were they seated by it?

Unbeknownst to Peter and Claire, what was supposed to be a friendly outing was about to morph into a wild ride through flying dollar bills, tipped champagne, and metal poles shining with sweat. For as much as Emerald City seemed to be a posh lounge for the rich and famous…

Well…it was actually a strip club. And if the half-naked dancers gyrating against poles not twenty feet from their table didn't make that obvious, Peter wasn't sure what else could.

Claire's face stayed buried in Peter's collar with horror from start to finish. And though Peter tried to feel awkward with his niece so close to him, no weird feelings came. Her breath on his neck, eyelashes fluttering against his skin, all mixed in with the woman he was watching from a few yards away...it was strangely arousing, in the most twisted way possible.

Then he came to his senses (somewhat) when the dancers went backstage and the curtains closed for another half-hour. Never in his life did he have to think the word NIECE _that_ loud in his head before. Louder than the beat of his heart, the music, and even louder the tacky sweater on Mistress Rich-N-Plenty, who sat a few tables over.

And it scared the hell out of him for a grand total of two seconds; right before her lips accidentally brushed his jugular and he threw himself into the vats of admittance and temptation forever.

The devils had a bounty on him now. The scent of a sinner was impossible to cover.

xxx

_**April 7, 2008**_

_I am completely, totally screwed. I__ know__ it for fact but somehow, I don't FEEL it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. _

_But being in love with Claire doesn't feel wrong, no matter what my blood says._

**To be continued…**


	4. Honey And The Moon

Part Four

**Part Four**

"**Honey and The Moon"**

xxx

Sylar's normally hot tea grew more and more chilly the longer he waited for Niki Sanders to walk through the doors of Robert's Deli. Though the woman was never exactly Miss Punctuality, wasn't forty-five minutes late just stretching it a little?

It was time to accept the truth: she didn't _want _to spend time with him. Or, more likely, she just forgot. After all, Niki had shown nothing but kindness to Sylar in the short time that she'd known him. There would be no reason to simply stand him up for lunch, just as there was no reason for all the "she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not" high school paranoia. Spare him, please.

Just when Sylar was about to ask for the check, a windswept and overwhelmed blonde tumbled inside the restaurant. Sylar hailed her over amicably, and apologies started to fly out of her mouth the moment she spotted him. Her arms were full of binders and messenger bags, making her super-strength almost as obvious as the barcode on her wrist. The green tattoo was sticking vividly out of her sleeve, earning a few quirked eyebrows from other people in the deli.

Gabriel stood up to hold out the chair for her, his eyes widened at the sight of her load. "All this for an interview with…Chile's?"

Niki managed to get herself settled into the chair, but had to settle for resting her feet on a small stack of books. "It's never bad to be too prepared."

"Well, actually," Sylar slowly responded as he slid back into his chair, "you _could _be considered overqualified."

Niki scoffed, albeit a bit grimly. "I dropped out of high school, Sylar. I doubt I'm overqualified to work at _McDonald's, _let alone a real restaurant."

"You're more than a diploma," he gently reminded her. "And if you don't believe it, just look to me. Would I bother being around you if you weren't good for some form of intelligent conversation?"

His eyebrow was bent up like a boomerang, framing an uncharacteristically _mischievous_ look on his face. Niki rolled her eyes good-naturedly and patted his hand.

"Good point. You're pickier than Harvard when it comes to friends."

Sylar was still smiling with that impish glint. "Indeed."

The single widow picked up a menu from behind the napkin rack and began leafing through it. As she browsed through the sandwich section, she absently said to Sylar, "Anyway, that's why I was late. The interview ran way long and the traffic in this town sucks…"

Gabriel's lips resisted the urge to stick out in disagreement. He'd really come to adore San Francisco, but Niki found it much too liberal, too "festival-y", _and_ she despised all the steep hills.

But even she had to admit that the weather was remarkable 24/7.

The waiter came and took Niki's order and gave Sylar a new cup of hot raspberry tea. Another thing he loved about this place: there were a hundred different types of tea at _every _restaurant. Even at pretzel stands on the side of _the road_. Mint tea…mango tea….black tea….white tea….key lime pie tea…

When Niki finally had a moment to slump back in her seat and take a breath, she turned her attention to Sylar's own business. "How'd _your _interview go?"

The man shrugged. "I believe it went well. The librarians were more than surprised that I'm thirty-three years old and I've never once been employed, but they seemed like they're willing to give me a chance." He wore a slightly sarcastic smirk as he made some adjustments to his cup of chai, but when he looked up at Niki, his eyes were honest. "I think they said that I'd start out as a book labeler. If I did well, I could get promoted to 'shelfer'."

Niki wore an expression of slight worry. "What's that gonna pay?"

"Minimum wage," Sylar answered faintly. He saw the question coming. That didn't mean he had to like it.

Now, the blonde was undeniably concerned. "Will you be able to afford to live off that? Everything costs a fortune out here. This _lunch _is probably gonna be forty freakin' bucks."

Which was pretty much the point of the whole "jobs" thing. Though both Sylar and Niki wanted to live in a sunny, happy place far away from where they originally were, neither had given much thought to the economy they were stepping into. It had been three weeks since they'd moved to California, and after their first few rent and dinner bills, both realized their wallets would be draining mighty fast. Thus, each of them, including Micah, made a pact to get a job by the end of the month.

Niki could make a couple hundred a day with tips and her regular salary. But Sylar, as a minimum wage book stamper at the downtown library…he would be a little worse for wear in the cash department.

"Peter left me a lot of money," Sylar assured her. "A ridiculous amount, in fact, since I inherited what he left for Claire as well. I don't want to use it, but if something financially was to happen to me, I have plenty of back-up. Don't worry."

Niki's lips were pursed as she debated whether to argue. Sylar, who'd read more than a few books on body language, cleared his throat and took the high road.

"And speaking of my brother," he began warily, the crows feet deepening around his eyes. "Do you think it's…_wrong_ to snoop around in the affairs of someone who died?"

The waiter interrupted their conversation by handing Niki her turkey sandwich and a plate of baked fries. Once the guy went back into the kitchen and left them alone again, Niki finally replied with a frown.

"You haven't been talking to Nathan, have you?"

Sylar blanched. "No! Not like that. I haven't heard from him in weeks." He rubbed a hand through his chestnut hair, over the gelled pieces which hung above his brow. "I meant more along the lines of journals. That sort of thing."

Niki looked to the ceiling in contemplation. "After DL died, I had to do some digging through his personal life. He didn't keep a diary or anything, but passwords and account information, and stuff like that. I guess it's kind of essential. But what are _you _looking for?"

Sylar stalled by taking a long sip of his tea and meticulously setting it back on the ceramic plate. "I found a box of Peter's junk, and it's full to the brim with old journals, letters, and various other things to do with Claire. I found Claire's diary too, and I started comparing them last night. It's fascinating to see what they used to be like, yet I can't help but feel as though I'm intruding."

"If you feel wrong about it, then you probably shouldn't do it," the woman wisely pointed out.

He rubbed his forehead with his palm. "I know. But I don't have any bad intentions. I loved them both, and I'm just trying to figure out who they were." He hesitated and quietly added, "It's important not to forget."

Those last five words made Niki glance up with a new resolve. She had said the exact same words to DL concerning her dead sister Jessica, over seven years ago now.

"Peter and Claire trusted you," she said. "Even if there are secrets, you'd probably be the first one they'd tell, if there had been any time left."

"Probably," Sylar admitted. "But do you think they'd tell _you_?"

Niki's blue eyes went a bit wide. "I don't know. I didn't really know either of them."

"Well, figuring out their past is a mental nightmare," Sylar sighed. "It would be nice to have someone help me, and you do live right across the hall…"

"Since when I am good with logic?" Niki snorted.

"Since you became a mom," Sylar reminded her. "You're smarter than you give yourself credit for. You know how to multi-task. And on top of that, you could throw Hulk Hogan across the room too."

Niki grinned, her cheeks deepening into a lovely shade of pink. She was a sucker for flattery. Sylar knew it, and she _knew _Sylar knew it. Sneaky little weasel.

"Fine, Einstein. I'm in."

xxx

_We're made out of blood and rust_

_searching for someone to trust without a fight_

_I think that you came too soon_

_You're the honey and the moon_

_That lights up my night_

_But right now everything you want is wrong_

_and right now all your dreams are waking up_

_and right now I wish I could follow you _

_To the shores of freedom where no one lives. _

-Honey and the Moon by Joseph Arthur

xxx

_**July 4, 2008**_

_Mohinder called me this morning, really early. Which is weird. He sounded frantic though, so at least that's a sign of normality. _

_But it's Independence Day too, and I kinda want a day off from being Superman._

_The second time he called, I let it ring. _

xxx

"Peter?"

"Hmm?"

"What did Mohinder want?"

They casually sat on the couch, and Claire's feet propped up on his lap, a lot closer to his zipper than he felt comfortable with. But her eyes danced with utmost innocence as she stared at him from above the top of her _Cosmo!Girl_. She was oblivious. Naïve. Innocent.

The antithesis of him.

It took Peter a few seconds too long to realize that she asked a question. "I dunno," he quickly replied, scowling a bit. "How'd you even find out about that?"

She shifted her leg just a little so the cuffs of her pants slid up, revealing smooth, tanned ankles. Peter's fingers tingled with the longing to run his hands over the skin, to find out if it really would feel like sinking his nails into butter. He wanted his gentle strokes to make her shiver and moan, for her to lean her head back on the armrest as she surrendered to his seemingly chaste ministrations. All these fantasies, the usual enticements, played before Peter's eyes, and he felt a petrifying lurch down below.

He barely heard her answer.

Claire shrugged, still nonchalant. "He called when you were out. He told me to tell you to call him. He sounded pretty pissed off that you aren't answering."

It had been two weeks since Independence Day, when Mohinder first hit him up. Since then, the phone had been ringing off the hook, but Peter wasn't one to jump and get it.

"I don't want to talk to him," Peter grumbled, unusually surly. He slid his hands underneath his thighs, subtly sitting on them. It was the last resort to stop from sticking his hand up her pant leg, grasping the toned muscles of her shin with abandon. "Every time I go over to that stupid apartment, I can barely hear myself _think. _He's worse than the Company; always trying to _test _me and get _answers. _Maybe we're not supposed to have answers. I don't understand why he can't just accept what we are and let it be."

"Mohinder's our friend," Claire replied, her brows lowering along with her magazine. "He's _nothing _like the Company. He'll never push you until you can't handle it anymore, and he'll never _make _you do anything you don't want to. And he's a scientist, of course he wants answers. He's just trying to make sure his dad's work wasn't useless. Plus," she added, "what if it has nothing to do with experiments?"

Peter tilted his chin upward slightly, an invitation for her to continue. "What?"

Claire bit her lip and leaned forward, unconsciously baring the top of her cleavage to him. His hands clenched the upholstery of the couch. It took every ounce of control and self-worth for him to rip his eyes away from the pale, gorgeous breasts four feet in front of him, and to actually use his ears.

"What if you're sick, Peter? He could have found something wrong, and wants to tell you about it so you can get help."

_Ha. You have _no _idea how right you are, Claire, _he thought bitterly. _No. Freaking. Idea._

xxx

In a little under two years, Claire had gone from "illegitimate daughter" to "seemingly invisible girlfriend of Peter."

Nathan Petrelli, in his fight for the white house, had finally succeeded in selling his soul. Of course, the public was oblivious, and that was mostly the fault of the media, more than the Petrellis' doings. Instead of "Political Snake and Baby Daddy," all the headlines roared about "Nathan Petrelli- The Hero of New York!"

It wasn't a secret, what had happened the night of Kirby Plaza. Or, at least, most it wasn't. The public knew about the bomb in a literal sense. As in a "pound of C4 with a fuse and lots of itty bitty metal pieces." That whole exploding man thing was vastly covered up, and instead replaced with a story something along the lines of "Nathan found a bomb, grabbed it, and took off in a helicopter."

How anyone had survived the explosion over New York was something even Fox News couldn't dig up. However, as Nathan often said as he stirred his brandy with a slick hand motion, _less is more_.

So Nathan was the country's own personal Jack Bauer. And Peter was the hapless not-hero standing behind his brother, pretending to look amused at the jokes Nathan's speechwriter crafted.

Peter and Claire would often exchange glances from behind the congressman's back, to comfort each other in the tumultuous days they didn't deserve. Claire didn't deserve to be expected to hold hands with her uncle everywhere she went, just as Peter didn't deserve to have such a crude temptation laced within his fingers at every campaign rally.

Each time she touched him, it only hurt worse. For Peter was certain that not only was his heart breaking, but so was his resolve. What if the barriers shattered one day? _What if, _on some ordinary Sunday, he just decided to let go, and maybe slam her against the wall, just _take her. _

He trembled every time the thought came up. It was mostly paranoia, 'cause he knew for a fact that he wasn't about to molest his poor niece against her will. No, that wasn't the big dread…

It was that…that _way _Claire always looked at him, like a shot of novocaine right to his temple every time. What _if she _felt something too and didn't try to stop him? Because really, her wants and needs were the only things holding him back. If she gave herself to him, then he was surely damned.

Worse yet, that possibility was growing increasingly more striking. Peter could sense it when her skin brushed against his. All that electricity that made the hair on the back of his neck go prickly, that sent a shiver of sinful pleasure down his narrow spine.

But above all, it made him want to puke.

xxx

_**August 22, 2008**_

_Three months ago, heck, two YEARS ago I thought I could control this. I thought I could ignore how I felt about Claire, but she touched me today, really touched me, and she has not a clue in the world to what it does to me…_

_That was enough to give me the red flag: I don't belong here anymore. She's become the white Petrelli sheep that can make a secret with a straight face, and I almost think she's ready for this. For us. She really __could __be, and that's what scares me more than anything. _

_But I always had the black wool, didn't I? I'm the choir boy, St. Peter, the only one in the family who they actually expect to keep his hands to himself. _

_Which I can't anymore. So I have to run. _

xxx

**To be continued…**


	5. Martyr For My Love For You

Part Five

**Part Five**

"**Martyr For My Love For You"**

xxx

There was a yellowed journal face-down in Niki Sanders' lap when she awoke on Friday morning. But that wasn't nearly as surprising as the warm arms on the rest of her body.

The widow gasped and sat up with a start, instinctively looking at her watch. Only eight o'clock; good. Micah was scarce to be seen out of bed before ten, so she still had time to sneak back into the apartment. For God only knew, if her son found out she spent the night at _Sylar's, _he would bring a maelstrom of mockery and whining upon her that would take months to dissipate.

The "Sylar" in question was still asleep, arms looking rather empty after she had shaken them off her. He let out a grunt and shimmied his shoulders deeper into the couch, a small fresco of loss painted upon his features. Niki sighed and brushed back his normally wild hair, which now laid flat on his forehead.

It had never been her intention to stay with him for this long. In fact, Niki had the full intention of going back to her house before sundown to spend some time with Micah (however futile that would probably be, seeing as the young boy just moved up to "expert" on Guitar Hero III and was bound to be rather distracted). But they'd just gotten so swept up in Peter and Claire's story, that the next thing Niki knew, she was yawning and leaning her head on his shoulder to stay upright on the couch.

At least she had told her son that she was at Sylar's doing some research. He knew where to find them.

"Hey," voiced an elegant baritone from beside her.

Niki smiled down at him. "Hi."

Sylar propped himself up on his elbows and ran a hand over his sore neck, cringing. "I didn't expect to see you here this morning."

She snorted good-naturedly. "Neither did I."

Sylar smiled back with sad eyes before gazing around at the floor, the coffee table… It was all covered with Peter and Claire's artifacts. Sylar glanced down at his own watch, the watch that actually _told _time. After Peter's death, Sylar took off his broken watch for the first time, and put on its identical twin. The twin originally crafted for Peter.

"You should get back to Micah, I guess. He's probably worrying sick about where you are."

"Please, do you even know my son?" Niki smirked. "I'd be lucky if he's even out of bed yet. Boy genius or not, he's still a teenager." She looked around at the mess, and the almost empty box. "I think I'd better help you clean all this up anyway."

"I'm not sure what to do with it," Sylar mused, sitting up straighter. "I don't want to pack it away again. Besides, I'm not quite done looking through it yet."

Niki picked up Peter's silver ring, the one with the inscription to Claire on the inside. Her eyes flitted to Peter and Claire themselves, who rested in peace above the faux fireplace, and a light bulb went off over her crown of dishwater blonde hair.

"Put everything on the mantelpiece," she suggested. "It can be like a collection of their life."

"That sounds a bit like a shrine," Sylar replied, skeeved.

Niki blinked, and shrugged one of her shoulders demurely. "Wasn't it you that said it's important not to forget?" She placed Peter's ring in Sylar's hand, and then pulled the amnesiac's slender fingers over it.

The ring was warm against his palm, melting his frosty resolve.

He lifted himself off the couch and crossed the room with slow muscles, before soundlessly placing the silver ring exactly between Peter and Claire's urns.

"Okay," he responded, the side of his mouth curving upwards in Niki's direction. "A shrine it shall be."

xxx

_I could stay a while  
But sooner or later I'll break your smile  
And I can tell a joke  
But one of these days I'm bound to choke  
And we could share a kiss  
But I feel like I can't go through with this  
And I bet we could build a home  
But I know the right thing for me to do  
Is to leave you alone_

"A Marytr For My Love For You" by The White Stripes

xxx

It took two years of knowing him before Claire discovered Peter's real first name. And then, when she _did _figure it out, she never stopped talking about it.

"Seriously though," she began for the sixth time, sitting across from him with an apple in one hand. "_What _were they thinking when they named you? You are _so _not a Michael."

"I was seven when I figured that out," he replied dryly. "Actually, it was Nathan that suggested I go by the middle name. Which I don't _love_, but it's still better then when I was a kid. Before I got wise, Ma used to introduce me to her friends with_ both_ names. 'Oh look here, Mrs. Van der Hoof! This is my son, Michael Peter! Isn't he lovely?' Nightmare."

Peter rolled his eyes, and Claire felt a bit uncomfortable at the abrupt complaint concerning his family. She always knew he was kind of the silent black sheep of the lot, but never had Peter actually_ voiced_ anything negative about his parents or brother.

Claire did the math in her head to change the subject. "Yeah, I guess Nathan was about eighteen then, right? That was around the time I was born. Or _made _at least."

"Yeah, I was nine when he met Meredith," Peter nodded absentmindedly.

Claire took a loud, noisy bite into the apple, breaking him out of his own little world. Peter watched on like a deer in headlights as her glossed lips ran over the red skin, her teeth tearing off a piece of the fruit's flesh. He shivered and looked away.

"Did you know about me?" she pressed. "When you were a kid, did they ever tell you?"

"No," Peter replied automatically, but when he actually stopped and thought about it, he had to retrace his steps. "Wait…I think…I think I might have seen you once."

The teenager sat up in the recliner, her interest now peaked. "You _did?_"

"They never told me I had a niece, so I didn't know who you were. But there was this blonde woman who came over one day, when I was about nine or ten. She had a baby daughter and she put the her in my old room while she and my family visited and stuff. But I wasn't allowed in with them, so they made me look after the kid. I don't remember much, except that she had these…gorgeous eyes. And I didn't really know what to do, so I kind of just talked to her about school and life and anything I could think of. And a couple hours later, her mom took her home, and I never saw either of them again."

Claire's face was pallid and dumb while Peter's eyes bore holes in the floor over his pink cheeks. What was one supposed to say to that? And were they even sure that the small child Peter had entertained for a couple hours, kept busy with his droned tales of kindergarten crushes and cool action figures…_could _that have been Claire?

"Why'd you never tell me that?"

Peter didn't meet her eyes as he quietly replied, "I never thought much of it."

Claire bit into her apple again, breaking the quiet with a loud crunch. "That's so cool, though, isn't it? How we met at Homecoming, but we could have met _before_."

Peter merely shrugged, not bold enough to admit that he would have rather not met her at all. At least that would save him the torment that rattled his bones, save him from the rash and unthinkable resort he was forced to go to tonight. He would rather live lonely and bored in his small apartment then have a girl like Claire light up his life. A girl he couldn't _touch, _but could only hold. A niece he was in love with.

Peter tasted blood. He'd chewed his gums so harshly that the teeth broke the skin. And then Claire took another rough bite of that apple and he was on his feet, headed toward the coat rack.

Claire stood up too. "Peter? Where you going?"

"Er…home. I don't feel so good."

The girl's lips stuck out in a small, sympathetic pout. "Oh. Well…get better, okay?"

He pulled on his jacket with haste, and didn't look back. "Um…yeah."

"And I'll see you tomorrow?" Claire hopefully confirmed, brows high up give room for wide eyes.

Peter stopped moving, his hand frozen on the doorknob. His stare was locked on the rack as he emotionlessly replied, "Sure. See you tomorrow."

xxx

It was twenty four hours later when Claire found The Letter on Peter's bathroom mirror.

_I'm so sorry for leaving on such bad terms, Claire. _

_Please find some way to forgive me, and know_

_that my reasons for leaving were nothing but decent. If I _

_had stayed, things…things could have gotten bad. Trust me._

_But I can swear to you that we __will __meet again someday._

_I know it. And that's why I'm making it a promise. _

_I hope I can still be your only hero._

_Love always,_

_Peter_

Claire stared at Peter's final testament until the words were no more than black scratches on a white abyss. Forgive him? He honestly expected her to friggin' _forgive him _for doing this? For running away without as much as a cordial goodbye, a reason, anything? It was inconceivable, uncalled for, and…God, how could he…why'd he have to…?

And how could she know these, these so called "decent" reasons? Did it have to do with her? Was it something she said, or did? And out of all his family, why was she the one he addressed his farewell letter too?

Claire didn't realize she was crying, not at first. But when rain started to pour upon the thin paper, smudging the ink, her tears were pretty much undeniable.

"_You didn't even say goodbye."_

"_Goodbye…"_

"Dammit, Peter!" she sniffed, something in her finally snapping at his hypocrisy. Claire grabbed both sides of Peter's letter and ripped it cleanly down the middle, then again, and again and again until his shoddy excuse for a farewell was nothing more than confetti that littered the floor.

There were no thoughts within her head but trains of rage and sheer _hurt._ Confusion and analysis could come later. For now, there was only her shattered world and weak soul, which all burned down like a tower in Sodom. And she fell with it, crumpling to the floor with a high-pitched wail of lament. 

xxx

_**September 1, 2008**_

_I didn't think this would feel so awful. I mean, I knew being apart from Claire would rip me in half, but this was supposed to be liberating. Instead, I just feel guiltier._

_So I called Mohinder back, finally. If Claire's right, and I'm sick, at least I can do something about it. Maybe Mohinder can__ fix me__. _

_And after he does, I can go back to her as the __uncle__ I____should be and never have to walk away again._

xxx

_**September 9, 2008**_

_This is the longest I've gone without seeing Peter in two years. Ever since that week he went missing after Kirby Plaza, I've seen him at least every other day since then. I remember that week really vividly, too. I was so, so sure that Peter was gone, yet there was still a little bit of hope in the back of my mind. Cause Peter could heal and Peter loved us, so there was a CHANCE he could come back. And then he walked through the doors of my room, and I remember hugging him so tight he could barely breathe._

_The first couple days of _this time, _I felt the same way. But now it's different. Running away was Peter's choice, not the outcome of near-death experience. Even Nathan's starting to cover it up, saying his brother went away on "sabbatical" indefinitely. _

_It was only when he began making that announcement that I really admitted it:_

_Peter is gone forever this time. And he's not coming back. _

xxx

**To be continued…**


	6. Biological

Part Six

**Part Six**

"**Biological"**

xxx

_Your fingerprints, the flesh around your wounds_

_I'd like to know why all these things move me_

_Let's fuse ourselves to be as one tonight_

_A part of me would like to fly beneath your wings_

_Biological_

_I don't know why I feel that way with you_

"Biological" by Air

xxx

_**October 15, 2008**_

_I called Mohinder back and we set up a meeting for today. He still hasn't told me exactly what's going on (apparently, he wants to be 'proper' and tell me in person). But what he _did _divulge is that it concerns Sylar, which makes me almost sure that Claire was right- I'm sick._

_I guess I just absorbed so much of that son of a bitch's abilities, that I took part of him into me. And God knows the man was a lunatic. It's a miracle I haven't started drinking blood and ripping off people's skulls yet._

_Whatever Mohinder has to say, I can only hope everything will still get better from now on. Even if I can't be 'fixed', or I can't get Sylar out of my head, at least I can be aware that he's up in there somewhere, screwing with the gears. _

_I see Suresh in half an hour. Here goes nothing._

xxx

Peter had always been good in science class; it was one of the reasons he chose to become a nurse. But as he stared at the three sheets of complicated nucleotides and elegant double helixes before him, Peter felt like a dumbstruck freshman on the first day of Bio 101.

His eyebrows were high on his forehead all throughout his examination of the printouts. The one in the middle had his own name scrawled across the top in Mohinder's unusually feminine handwriting. The sheet that flanked it to the left was labeled "Nathan Petrelli," and the one to the right plainly said "Sylar."

"I think I know what these are," Peter slowly stated in the most unconvincing tone conceivable. "They're genetic scans. But…_why _are you showing me? I don't see any differences, even between me and Sylar."

Mohinder rubbed his temples. "That's because there aren't many. It's hard to spot for someone who doesn't know what they're looking at. To me, on the other hand, the situation is clear."

Peter held up a palm. "No offense Suresh, but could you skip the Deal or No Deal music and just get to the point? What the hell's happening to me?" He remembered Claire's warning and monotonosly intoned, "Am I sick?"

Mohinder blinked at the outburst and then glanced warily into the den. His twelve-year-old adopted daughter, Molly, was asleep on the couch, curled up on one of the cushions like a feline searching for warmth. The doctor turned his attention back to Peter.

"Peter, for the record, you seem to be in perfect mental and physical health," Mohinder said, cocking his head a bit curiously. "The reason we're here today is…well…your DNA doesn't line up with that of Nathan Petrelli's. It's not even remotely similar." He hesitated. "I doubt you two are even cousins, let alone brothers."

The younger man stiffened in shock, hearing the words which he altogether loathed coming from the Indian man's buttery voice.

"We're…" Peter stammered softly, his stomach starting to churn. He dumbly repeated, "Nathan and I aren't related?"

"Not in the least," Mohinder confirmed with slight sympathy. Suresh was never much one for bedside manner, but he did manage to blur his dark features to look apologetic. Apologetic for a friend who'd just had his world inverted by a few strands of protein and sugar.

"What's Sylar got to do with all this?" Peter miserably prodded. It was a useless, emotionless question, and damn if he already knew the answer.

"I stumbled across his genome," Mohinder elaborated. "I was looking for yours, to run a few tests on it, and I have it memorized by sight relatively well…but when I pulled out your file for examination, I realized that I had accidentally picked out Sylar's. See, your genetic tissue is remarkably similar, Peter, and I was curious enough to take a closer look."

"Sylar's my real brother?" Peter blurted out.

Mohinder froze a second, before admitting the truth with a grim nod.

"You might even be twins," he added. "I haven't done enough proper tests, but if you give me time-,"

"No!" Peter snapped, more harshly than he'd intended. As soon as the shout had erupted out of his throat, a soft moan came from the den. Molly had awoken and was stretching her long limbs, feet dangling off the end of the couch.

Peter's legs trembled uncontrollably as he ripped his sight away from the young girl and rushed out of his chair. His normally olive skin was white with revulsion at Mohinder's discovery, a discovery that he could possibly be the twin, or brother, or anykind of kin of that _murderer _who wanted to rip off Claire's skull…

And what did that make _him_? Didn't Peter obsess over Claire just as much as Sylar did? It was why he ran away, _wasn't it? _He was afraid he would hurt her with his desire, just like Sylar could have harmed her with his bloodlust. It was only now that he realized how _exactly the same _he and that monster were- they stole people's powers, they wanted to be special, they were both flying pigs in fields of average sheep…

They even _looked _the same, dammit.

Peter nearly body slammed Mohinder's door in his haste to get out of there before he ended up retching all over the good professor's linoleum. He hardly even heard Mohinder call his name as he teleported away in utter horror.

xxx

Niki's hand was over Sylar's. "I'm sorry. He didn't know."

Sylar sighed and bookmarked Peter's journal, before setting it on the coffee table. "It's not so bad. He was always pretty open about the fact that he used to resent me. It's just kind of funny, the way things all turn out."

"Yeah." Niki relaxed. "You two were inseparable."

Sylar's heart began to burn for the first time since his twin brother's funeral, and all he could do was nod.

xxx

Angela Petrelli, such a social butterfly, was into making a big deal of sweet sixteens. Twelve years before, the woman threw a huge bash that Peter didn't want with people he didn't even know, but the one thing Peter took out of it was her gift. A keepsake, she had said. Something he could hold onto for the rest of his life.

Her engagement ring.

She told him, when she slipped it off her slender finger and set it in his hand, to give to someone special. Peter, being class reject and general dork of the tenth grade at the time, miserably accepted his mother's offering. Like any girl would ever love _him _and his braces, two left feet, and black frizzy curls with a mind of their own.

Still, ever since that day, Peter had it tucked away in his pocket at all times. He even had it pocketed on Homecoming night, and spent the entirety of the next day in a jail cell with none of his possessions, worrying sick over the location of his mother's ring. And then once again, when he woke up from his coma two weeks later.

Anyway, Peter wasn't sure at first whether it was the force of Claire slamming into his body, or a drop of destiny all it's own…but the very moment that he met Claire in front of the trophy case, he felt that little ring _twitch _against his leg_. _Initially, he passed it off as his imagination. But when Claire was staring at him from the end of the hall, giving that sad little smile, the ring vibrated _again, _making a believer out of Peter.

Cause Claire was definitely someone special.

As Peter walked- _meandered _more like- through the thicket of busy New Yorkers, his hand slipped into his pocket and clutched around his mother's ring. Wait, no…for if the revelation that Peter just heard was true, Angela wasn't his mother. Nathan…Peter cringed…Nathan wasn't his brother. And most curiously, Claire wasn't his niece.

Claire…Claire wasn't his niece?

And what about Sylar? Peter's brow knitted in thought at his long-lost _brother. _He didn't even know whether the murderer was dead or alive, but it didn't matter at the end of the day. Peter Petrelli wanted noting to do with the bastard.

And that was _one _thing, at least, that would never, ever change.

Peter ducked into a Jewish grocery store and hid behind one of the freezers. He pulled a clenched fist from his pocket and slowly opened his palm, revealing the dull silver ring inside.

He'd always known he and Claire weren't related. It wasn't knowledge of the mind, but deep within his core, Peter could _not _see her as a niece, a sister, or anything with remotely similar blood. The ring he held in his open hand was part of the reason, for he'd never forgotten how warm the metal became whenever Claire was around. It was probably all in his head, but Peter wouldn't even bother imagining it if he wasn't in love with her to begin with, right?

Peter slumped against the shop window and buried his head in his hands. So they weren't related. So she was eighteen, and _so _it wasn't 'wrong.' However, those facts didn't make suddenly make it _right_. He had run away from the girl, abandoned her. What kind of righteous gentleman would he be to waltz up to her door and blow off the whole thing with a couple apologies?

Thus, he decided right then, right there, as he sat on the grimy floor of a run-down deli/grocer, that he would never go back. It was a rather rash and unconsidered choice in hindsight. After all, how could one simply to decide never to see the love of their life again, out of cowardice?

Because that's what this was- weakness, spinelessness, and a hundred other words that Webster's Thesaurus could volunteer for him. What kind of hero was he supposed to be? He ran from her because he was afraid, he ran from Mohinder so he could push away the truth, and now he was running from everything else in his life because he couldn't stand to grow a pair and face his problems.

And that's how now, Peter Petrelli, the most powerful man on the planet, was huddled on the floor of a sausage shop in New York, with an old silver ring in his hand and no idea where to go next.

There were noble options, and then there were comfortable options, both of which were 1mutually exclusive. The noble thing to do would be to stand up, brush off his pants with some moxy, and go tell Claire the truth, on one knee and begging for mercy. But Peter knew Claire- that would be a rough path to take. She wasn't a girl to hold a grudge, but she wasn't exactly a giver of absolution either.

And, of course, the comfortable option would be to pocket the ring, hit the road Jack and don't look back.

So Peter ended up choosing a happy medium: waiting. And not just 'wait' as in 'sit around and hope for something better,' but a wait that included some collateral.

There was luckily a jewelry dealer next to the deli which Peter was currently loitering in. The young man picked himself up off the floor and headed out before the old man at the counter noticed he had been there at all.

Peter's nice jacket and sleek haircut allowed him to blend in with other clientele in the gem shop. His feet led him to the first jeweler without a customer to hassle, and before he spoke a word, he removed the silver ring from his pocket and held it up.

"Do you do personal engravings?"

The jeweler smiled fondly, his gaze traveling over the details of the ring. "Ah. Getting engaged are we?"

Peter's eyes were suddenly enigmatic, and would stay like that permanently. "No. But just in case."

He gave the ring to the jeweler and wrote the dedication down on a Post-it, neatly printed and clearly legible. And one week later, he held the band in his palm once again, with his new inscription glinting on the inside. The message was etched perfectly the first time round, five little words dug into the solid metal of Angela and Arthur's matrimony.

_To Claire- From Your Hero._

He said in his final letter that they would meet again someday, and this was Peter's own little guarantee that the vow to her would be acted out in full. The day Peter truly, honestly felt like her hero again was the day he would give her the ring. Because even though he despised a lot of things about himself, he hated being a liar most of all.

xxx

**To be continued…**


	7. The Last Remaining Light

**Part Seven**

"**The Last Remaining Light"**

xxx

_Roll me on your frozen fields  
Break my bones to watch them heal  
Drown me in your thirsty veins  
Where I'll watch and I'll wait  
And pray for the rain _

"The Last Remaining Light" by Audioslave

xxx

_**September 1, 2009**_

_Time keeps on flying by, even when the days seem slow. Then again, maybe life's just moving fast on its own. Nathan's hardly been President for nine months and he's already screwed up the world. _

_That whole "mutant problem" was announced today, on the anniversary of when I left (yeah, Nathan, I _get it_). It's been the news of the day, Matt Lauer and Anderson Cooper and all those types chatting about whether Nathan's announcement has merit, or if he's pulling our legs. But the hard truth will be out there soon enough…and I won't be the only one in hiding anymore. _

_I try not to think about what this is probably doing to Claire. No one knows she's the president's daughter; she's still the 'lover' I left behind according to the tabloids (and maybe that's not so much a lie as the Petrellis think it is), and she's slowly gone missing from the press. But I still know she's trapped in a family she regrets wanting. Then again, did she ever want __us __them? (well, they're not MY relatives anymore, right?) The only reason she came to live with us was to go to NYU last fall. She just came a lot earlier to get adjusted to the city. But the more I think about it, the more I dread that the only reason she stuck around was because of __me. _

_I wish I still had contact with the Bennets, cause maybe then, I could help her escape. But I heard they moved a little after I ran, and I've lost track of them. Even so, I can't be sure that Noah wouldn't rat out my location to Claire. And then it would be off to the races for me again._

xxx

It was around October of 2009, when the news was buzzing about Miriam Hancock, that pizza nights at Mohinder's turned into meetings for the underground alliance. With due cause, for Hancock was the first mutant to be officially sterilized against her will. That was when the world still had a bit of a conscience, cause in three years, the media wouldn't even _care _anymore about stuff like that. Bagging, tagging, and snipping were all perfectly ordinary and 'boring_' _processes to CNN and NBC.

Miraculously, while she dealt with her raging story sweeping the newspapers and televisions, Miriam managed to grab a copy of _Activating Evolution. _Chandra Suresh's book had become like a Bible for inexperienced mutants over the years. And because of his father's work, Mohinder became the most notable doctor concerning metahumans, and kept getting more and more visits from strange people who accidentally set things on fire when the sneezed, etc.

Though, in recent days, the scientific community wasn't exactly on the Indian man's good side. There were already coughs of Loony Suresh, the Quack of New York mumbled in journals and at conferences. So Mohinder was looking slightly into moving away from it all. Maybe Boston?

Even still, it was no great shock that Miriam Hancock would meet Suresh at some point. Just, none of them could have expected her to stumble into the apartment at midnight on a Thursday while everyone was watching _The Godfather _and sipping Captain Morgan_. _

She was a pretty young woman, poor thing, with blonde hair spun into what used to be a French braid. The three men recognized her instantly from her over-publicized face. Any normal household would turn her away at the drop of a hat, but the men and Molly were hospitable and kind. They hadn't taken many people in, but who was to deny a fellowman oppressed?

xxx

They set up Miriam with a new home, a false identity, a safe route. It was all done through connections and creativity, even though she was the first person they'd ever attempted to spin into their sudden "Mutant Witness Protection Program." And after the job was well done, Peter found he didn't quite like it.

"It's only gonna get worse," he gloomily declared to Hiro and Mohinder over dinner. "If word gets out, all of 'em will be flying to us. And it's not like we can turn them away."

"How about, instead of them coming to us, we go to them?" Hiro suggested wisely. "Have you listened to Nathan's speeches? His intents are not obvious, but after looking closely, I've realized his whole outline for the next year. He plans on creating detainment centers for people like us. It's like a holocaust for mutants."

"Detainment centers?" Peter breathed. He sat back in his chair and rubbed his face tiredly. "How are we going to get into _those_?"

"With lots of power," Mohinder replied glumly. "Power that we don't have."

"Then we can find it," Hiro said with the usual optimism that the other two lacked. "Peter has several abilities that could be put to use and I can teleport."

"Yeah, but my abilities all got erased when I exploded in New York," Peter reminded him. "And I haven't met many useful people since then. Like, my telekinesis, super-hearing, great memory- all of those were Sylar's powers, and they're gone from me."

He specifically noticed Hiro cringe a bit when he mentioned that last power, and instantly felt sheepish. He'd known about Charlie for years, but often forgot to connect the dots in conversation.

"Then why don't you find Sylar and get those abilities again?" Mohinder said boredly, as if he was talking about the weather. "He is your brother. Don't you think he'd like to know?"

Peter blinked a few times as his brain throbbed with overdrive. "_What?!_"

Mohinder bit back a yawn. "Peter, listen. None of us are exactly friends with Sylar, but you've got to admit- he has a goldmine of abilities. If we want to truly help our people, we need that power from him."

"So you want me to waltz in, soak up his abilities, and leave? Oh yeah- all without getting my skull sawed off too, huh? Sounds _easy."_

Hiro's eyebrows moved in contemplation. "Or…you could just bring him back with you."

That was that final straw. Peter leapt out of his seat so fast that the chair actually tipped over. "Bring him back? Are you two _insane?_"

Not only had Sylar murdered Hiro's last love Charlie, but he also killed Mohinder's own father. If any two people had reason to burn with hatred for Sylar, the men in front of Peter were it. Yet amazingly, his two friends were still calm and rather nonchalant. Mohinder ran a hand over his coal-colored curls, a plan working behind his dark eyes.

"You have to understand how Sylar works," Mohinder explained. "He has to have _respect _for you. If you can get that, then he probably won't harm you. The only reason he killed people is because he saw them as worthless, and _guilty _of their worthlessness."

Peter's eyes narrowed. "Sure, Mohinder. That's why he totally didn't try blow up four million innocent people. He would never kill 'innocents,' right?"

"No, see, he called me beforehand-,"

"Oh _God_, he _called _you?!"

"-and he asked me to help him stop himself. He didn't want to explode, Peter. He specifically asked why he would do such a thing. He didn't want to kill innocent people for that very reason."

"Then why did he try to blow up New York!"

Mohinder stood up to face Peter eye-to-eye. His hands waved around wildly as his tolerance for mystery finally began to break. "Stop asking me questions I don't have the answers to!" he cried. "All I'm saying is that though Sylar was a bad man, but he wasn't necessarily crazy. His killings weren't random. I…"

He slumped down into his chair, exhausted and out of words. Peter moistened his lips, which he hadn't even realized were chapped until silence filled the air. What Hiro and Mohinder suggested was certainly madness. But even Peter had to admit they had a mild point amongst the insanity. Sylar was the most powerful metahuman of them all, even stronger than Peter at the time. Their rival was evil, but he was also highly intelligent, cunning, and had a lovely level of creativity in battle that had resulted in Peter's death multiple times.

He was their golden ticket, and they couldn't save the world without him.

xxx

_**November 8, 2009**_

_I think I could be pregnant._

_Okay, actually, I think I could __get __pregnant. It was last Saturday, so I guess there's no way to really tell now, and it was a totally stupid move, but I kind of feel proud too. Not proud that I banged (and gave my virginity to, FYI) some greasy emo kid that I just met downtown (and wow, is D.C. is different from New York), but that I…well…_

_A law came out this week- no mutant breeding. BREEDING. Like we're lab rats or something. I love Nathan to death, but honestly…what is he thinking? And what is he gonna do, sterilize us all or something? It wouldn't even work on me- I doubt my regeneration would let them snip my fallopian tubes. Honestly. _

_So that's kind of where this all came from, then. The whole "random sex" thing, that is. No one knows yet, and they don't suspect a thing- the press doesn't know I'm Nathan's daughter and I'm not rebellious, so there's no drama yet. But if I got pregnant, would that somehow '_show' _Nathan? Would that be like, an act of protest?_

_And the more I think about it, the more Peter keeps popping up into my mind. About how he, long-lost Peter, would be a GREAT-UNCLE at age frickin' thirty. About the look on his face when he'd see me, knocked up and a teenage statistic, even if it _was_ to spite Nathan for being an ignorant jackass. _

_But more likely, the reason I can't get him out of my head is because he exploded today. Three years ago, Peter exploded. The bizarre thing is, that still feels just like yesterday. Cause back then, when he was missing, I would lie on my bed, waiting for him to come back._

_And today, I still do. _

xxx

There was a partial eclipse over the world that morning, that morning of November 8th. And while Claire Bennet was pacing the floors of her new Georgetown mansion, wondering about whether or not she was carrying a Billy Joe Armstrong look-alike's bastard child, Peter Petrelli was in an entirely different spot.

Arizona had nice air, he decided as he flew over the crisp autumn desert. Everything smelled muskier out here in the west, even though the skies were far bluer than the oily clouds of New York. It was a nice sort of dusty though. Not like _dirty, _but more like…spicy.

He spotted a small shack a thousand feet below him. Peter twisted and dived towards it, and the force of the wind threw his hair off his forehead. His black trench coat rippled loudly near his knees, evoking a slick grin on his lopsided mouth. He didn't have much chance to fly in the city, so being out here in the middle of nowhere- being _free _at all- was pretty cool.

Peter landed hard with a skid and dirt spewed up all around him, coating the hem of his coat and spilling into his boots. He grumbled and shook his ankle irritably, feeling all the grains of hot sand sticking to the sole of his foot. Arizona- good air, bad land.

He sucked it up and curled his toes into the sand, grimacing with every step as he felt the dirt shake around in the inside of his shoe. But what he felt even _more_ intensely was a pair of eyes watching him as he sauntered over to the shack. Though, whether or not they were the evil brown eyes he was looking for was another issue.

In the terms of his childhood, he was off to see his own personal Racer X.

_Sylar, _he scoffed to himself for the millionth time. _What are they _thinking? _Just because Mohinder was all chummy with him for a while doesn't mean he's gonna cooperate. If I so much as walk out of this shack with my scalp attached to my head, I'll consider myself 'lucky.'_

Yet Peter held out and kept up his end of the bargain, marching over to Gabriel Grey's little abode as if he was off to see an old friend. It was a façade he could almost believe. They might have been friends as very small children, he mused. Which, the more that Peter thought about it, was a concept that brought several funny images to his mind. 'Baby Peter crying while Baby Sylar smacked him upside of the head with a teething ring' being the most cracktastic.

He was at the front door all too soon, which remained to be a small scrap of wood lodged in wobbly rectangular hole. Peter's mouth curled up into a bewildered smirk and he shoved two hands against it without shame. The door swung open violently and hit the opposite wall with a loud _smack_, causing Peter's bones to jump a bit. His eyes went wide and he hesitantly stepped inside the house, watching and alert for any sudden objects flying at his head.

Yet there was no one there.

"Sylar!" he yelled with more confidence than he felt at the moment. For the first time, Peter's cockiness was beginning to dim like a candle caught in a jar. Peter put his hands on his hips to look bigger and more intimidating. Just another mask in his box of tricks.

He sensed no sound and no movement, though. It was only when he was about to grab a sharp object and plow through the whole shack that an unusually clever idea came to him. He paused for a second to mull it over, and saw that the whole world had instantly become laid out before his eyes by an unknown source. His mind was sharper, his senses faster, and he suddenly knew how everything _ticked. _

How odd.

"I know you're in here!" Peter hollered with new, reasonably convincing certainty. Then, with a raised finger and a twitch of his knuckle, he sent a glass jar on the coffee table careening across the room. It shattered against the wall, earning a satisfied and interested 'humph' out of Peter. His telekinesis was back, and there was only one possible cause.

"Okay, no use hiding anymore," he announced with more relief. "You're right in front of me, I know it. And thanks for that power again, by the way. It's been a bitch living without your telekinesis."

Whether it was fear or curiosity that lured his brother out of hiding, Peter wasn't positive. But here he came, all messy-haired and scruffy, holding a shovel that looked even worse off than he was. Behind all that hair and crows feet though, Peter recognized the man to be Sylar.

He swallowed harshly and forced a smirk, turning to face his enemy and kin. There were words in his throat that stuck like molasses, words that he couldn't exactly spit out. Because no matter how badly he wanted to think of Sylar with hatred, the puppy-like fear and worry in his taller brother's eyes couldn't help but stir pity in Peter.

Still. Sylar was dangerous. Peter was here for business and to make an offer he couldn't refuse. Mohinder and Hiro would have to cross over Peter's dead body before this _thing _between enemies and long-lost brothers became the start of a "beautiful" friendship.

xxx

**To be continued…**


	8. Cold Promises

Part Seven

**Part Eight**

"**Cold Promises"**

xxx

_**November 12, 2009**_

_I can't decide if God likes me or if I'm just unusually lucky. Really, out of all the things I expected when I walked through Sylar's front door, I did __not__ anticipate a lonely amnesiac guy who lives off Twinkies. _

_But I've got to admit- he actually, and I say this without any sarcasm, picked a great time not to remember being a brain-eating serial killer. Right when we need him. _

_So welcome to the jungle, brother. _

xxx

Sylar's smirk was faintly bitter but mostly good-natured as he read over Peter's journal entry. This mood wasn't something that Peter had explicitly explained to him before, verbatim. Yet Sylar always got the gist that Peter wasn't waltzing around Arizona to find a pal. Yes, they had _needed _him, which was slightly petty and ironic now, considering that the aforementioned pie slice of Sylar's life ended with Peter as the fighting martyr and Sylar as a wry tech guy in the basement. But that was truly water under the bridge now. Sylar's life was so far away from that hide-and-seek game, he almost felt like it was a memory from a dream.

These journals helped him experience it again, remember those times. He'd hated that life when he was living it, but now it made him feel nostalgic. Being domestic kind of made him want to be a "spy" again.

He was alone too, in his empty apartment. Niki went back to her own abode about an hour before, making sure to tread quietly as not to wake Micah. Nothing had happened that merited suspicion, of course. But little boys with Playboys for brains had active imaginations.

Sylar set aside Peter's journal for the moment. He was on the third one now, for Peter organized his life by years, but Claire's whole saga was still bound in the same collection. Gabriel tilted his head and reached towards Claire's diary, which was beginning to get a bit terse and thin in its final pages. So far, the last few handfuls of entries had been brief and non-descriptive. More like notes of her days then lengthy descriptions of life.

Except for the very last entry, which went on for pages and pages. The date on the swirly line was _March 13, 2010, _and then it all just stopped.

Sylar's interest was piqued. He flipped to the beginning of Claire's end, which started about five pages before it cut off. After, he grabbed a journal of Peter's from the box in front of him. Peter's 2010 journal that Sylar had yet to open.

And with fresh eyes and a wired mind, Gabriel Monroe continued with his friends' stories side-by-side once more.

xxx

_She sleeps with the shirt of a late, great country singer  
Stretched out on her poor jealous husband's pillow  
In time you can turn these obsessions into careers_

"Waiting For End of the World" by Elvis Costello

xxx

_**March 13, 2010**_

_What kind of man protects his loved ones from himself? I've met a lot of them, and even I don't the answer yet. My long-lost dad Noah Bennet, wherever he is…I never really decided if he was good or bad. I __thought __Peter was a good man. He tried to protect us all from his abilities, and that's noble and stuff. Then he had to go run away and ruin it all._

_I never thought Nathan would be like this though. He's the shark of the family, but ever since Peter left, he's been different. I guess you could say we've been getting closer, bonding over our 'mutual loss' as Angela sometimes mutters. That hasn't made me friends with him though, and it sure doesn't make him my DAD. But what he did today did earn my respect a bit. Or, at least, my pity…_

xxx

The FBI headquarters were nothing like Claire originally imagined. She'd seen _CSI _and the _X-Files_ and those sorts of shows. She knew what this sort of thing looked like on TV. But in reality, if someone was dropped into the main hall of the Mutant Detainment Wing without being informed of it, he probably would think he was in an ordinary office building. How's that for Men in Black mania?

Nathan's hand was on the small of her back, guiding her through the sterile white hallways. A red-headed woman in snakeskin stilettos walked alongside them, her wicked features contorted into a permanent expression of severity. The woman had introduced herself as Agent Thayer with no first name, and according to Nathan, this was the woman who was getting Claire a job.

"We'll put you on duty tomorrow, and you'll begin your official training later in the week," Mrs. Thayer explained from thin air as they toured about the buildings. "First daughter or not, you still have to go through the same boot camp as everyone else, hon."

Her voice was not kind, but grim, and the former cheerleader felt Nathan's fist tighten into the cloth of her shirt. Claire's cheeks reddened as if she'd been insulted, even though Agent Thayer said nothing truly of offense.

"Where am I working at?" Claire asked hesitantly. She looked around furtively, at all the subtle cells and buzzing screams behind closed doors that made up the Mutant Wing. Wherever she worked, she sincerely hoped it wasn't _here._

"Security booth, near the Criminal Investigation labs," Agent Thayer breezily replied. "I think with your particular ability, security work should be a piece of cake."

It wasn't the words that sent a shiver down Claire's indestructible spine. It was the knowing, sharp look that Elisa shot the young Miss Bennet. It was too full of "I-know-something-you-don't," and Claire couldn't help but dread that her regeneration was going to be abused.

What had Nathan gotten her into?

xxx

Putting a mutant into 'the system' was not a pretty process. Bar-coding alone was dirty work. The ink was thick and poorly made. Tattoo needles weren't cleaned between uses. Not to mention the whole castrating thing, which this bar-coder in particular always had to grimace at.

He was working on the latter end of an "M" when pressing the tattoo gun into his latest captive's flesh wasn't resulting in a pretty little line. In fact, it wasn't resulting in anything but a few drops of blood bubbling up over the skin.

"Dammit," the worker groaned, shaking the tattoo pen some. No dice. The ink cartridge was bone dry.

He sighed and flipped the off switch on the wand, before setting it down on a not-so-sterile plate. Eh, six second rule, or maybe not. It didn't matter. These mutant freaks could survive all kinds of crap. They could probably life through a few germies.

The door to the lab opened and one of the bar-coder's least favorite people, Elisa Thayer, entered with a small blonde girl and the President of the United States. He swallowed and stood straighter.

"'Morning, Mr. President. Agent Thayer. Um…" He paused when he came to Claire. "…little Miss."

She didn't bother introducing herself. The girl merely kept her eyes downcast, even when the side of her mouth quirked up a bit in acknowledgement.

"Hello Thomas," Agent Thayer smiled like a black widow. "I see you've got another case. Well done."

"My apologies if we're interrupting something," Nathan said emotionlessly, his eyes falling to the concealed man on the operating table. A white sheet covered the entire immobile body, but one half-bloody, half-inky wrist still stuck out from under the cloth.

Thomas rubbed his neck and gave a small shrug. "Oh! No, sir. I was justa bar-coding this guy here. Gotta go get some more ink from the back though. Then it'll be snip-snip time." He offered an almost pitying look towards the man he would soon have to sterilize. "Poor bastard."

Claire dared to raise her eyes towards the sheet-coated body. It reminded her, sickly, of the time she woke up on an autopsy table. She had no idea if this mysterious mutant was indestructible or not, but his experience would probably be akin to hers either way.

"This is Mary Whetsill," Elisa pointed towards Claire. If the blonde hadn't seen Thayer pointing, she wouldn't have registered that the agent was speaking about _her. _"She's our new security hotshot."

"Nice to meet you, Miss Whetsill," Thomas smiled with gapped teeth. "Good luck to you."

"Thanks." Claire managed to smile more genuinely. Thomas had a rotten job, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. After all, she worked here now too, right? This job didn't make her evil, especially because this wasn't even _her _choice.

Yet Nathan's hand, still resting cautiously on her back, anchored her into this disturbing reality of anti-optimism. Her smile fell and she looked to the linoleum once more.

After they left Thomas to his work, Elisa's improvised tour came to a close. She pulled a small envelope from her breast pocket and handed it to Claire with a scary cat-like grace.

"Just read over these. They're just rules and regulations, basic procedures and such. I also included your weekly schedule in there and a bit of a supply list too. You should be perfectly ready for us tomorrow morning."

Claire held the envelope tightly to her chest, feeling very much like a small girl on the first day of school. She'd had a few nickel and dime jobs in her life, but none of them even came close to this level of rigid structure and confidentiality.

But what did she expect? It _was _the FBI.

Agent Thayer gave each of them a terse nod and a "No-Place-Like-Home" click of her stilettos before brushing past them and heading the opposite direction. Nathan finally let go of Claire's shirt, his knuckles standing white against red digits. He sniffed, a mannerism that Claire recognized but had never really interpreted the meaning of. The only thing she could guess was that Nathan the Talker hated silence, and had to fill it with something, anything.

"Oh! One last thing, dear," Elisa added, interrupting their ice with a turn of her heel. She took an intimidating pace closer and Claire almost considered stepping back. Nathan's hands flew to her arms and ended up being only things holding her in place.

Elisa grinned toothily, and stopped her advancement. "You really should do something about that hair."

xxx

_**March 13, 2010 (continued)**_

…_and that was the day. _

_One of their regulations is that I'm not allowed to keep any more journals, blogs, etc. I don't "exist" anymore, so I can't have any recorded document proving that I do. Agent Thayer insisted that I destroy it all, but I can't bear to throw this away. It's my last piece of Peter and Dad and everything, really, except for a few photos and ticket stubs. I just have to promise not to write any more inside it, so this has to be goodbye._

_I start in twelve hours, and then my life will proceed to an all new level of effed-up-idness. The brown hair dye is already starting to sink in, and I'm finishing writing this up while it's drying. I wonder what I'll look like as a brunette._

_I think Peter always dated brunettes (Simone, that high school chick…hmmm). Maybe I'll just shut up and call it a good luck charm, then. It's totally stupid but I can't help but hope that one day, this brown hair will draw him to me._

_But I shouldn't even really dream. Dreams are for kids. And when Elisa Thayer puts a gun in my hand tomorrow, I really don't think I'm gonna be a kid anymore. _

_Wish me luck._

_  
-Claire_

xxx

_**March 14, 2010**_

_Six months. __Six months. _

_I'm __me__, (The Power Sponge of Amazement according to Molly) and it only takes the feds _half a year_ to find me and put a barcode on my wrist? Before Sylar or Hiro or ANY of them?_

_I think I weep for the future. _

xxx

**To be continued…**


	9. Nature Girl

Part Nine

**Part Nine**

"**Nature Girl"**

xxx

Sylar's eyes locked on his mantelpiece in horror as he slowly lowered Peter and Claire's journals. On that same exact day- on March 13, 2010 –Peter and Claire had been inches away from each other and they never even knew it. If Sylar's inference was correct, _Peter _had been the one on the barcoder's table when Claire toured the FBI. She spent a good page talking about the man under the white sheet and her interest in him, when all along…

A knock on Sylar's front door severed him from his thoughts on parade. He dog-eared both journals (feeling a guilty cringe inside) and went to answer it.

The always elegant Niki Sanders was the first thing he saw when he swung the door open. She was much more prominent in his thoughts and vision than the torn carpet or tacky hallway wallpaper. In fact, if Sylar had to really consider it, _all_ he could see was Niki.

"Did you sneak in alright?"

Niki smiled mischievously. "He didn't know a thing."

Sylar beamed back with equal radiance, always glad to be apart of the subtext. "So, what's going on?"

She shrugged casually. "I'm just heading off to get some groceries before it gets too hot, and you said you were running out of milk. Is there anything else you want me to get?"

Sylar looked at her softly, letting his body lean forward a bit. "You don't have to do that. I'll just make the trip myself sometime this weekend."

Touching him on the arm affectionately, Niki could help but reply with pins and needle. "No offense, but I'm lucky if I can get you out of the house to go to the laundromat. If I don't do this, you'll _starve._"

Sylar's shoe rubbed back and forth over the linoleum as he weighed her proposal. He really hated accepting favors, especially from Niki. It made him feel like a user. But his neighbor had a point- he was so wrapped up in the journals that he'd barely left the house at all in the last week.

"Alright," he finally agreed. "Some more food probably wouldn't hurt."

"It's about time you took a favor," Niki said cheerfully. "But next time, you're coming with me. I'll drag you outside if I have to, Mr. Antisocial."

"I'm not doing it on _purpose_," he protested gently. He took a deep breath. "I'm still organizing Peter and Claire's journals, and that's taken a lot of time."

Niki's eyes brightened. "Oh! Cool, I was gonna ask you about that, because it was really interesting and-."

"Come on in and read some before you go," Sylar put a hand on her shoulder with a grin, stopping her in her embarrassed fluster. "I was just getting to the good part."

xxx

_**December 23, 2011**_

_I hate my birthday. Not just __this __birthday (which, by the way, is my thirty-second and I'm really starting to feel old), but ALL my birthdays. Mostly because it's two days before Christmas and I was raised with cheap socialites who do that "two birds with one stone" thing. You know, "Here's your Christmas AND birthday present." _

_I know that sounds kind of materialistic, though in all honesty, it's not the lack of gifts that really bothers me. It's just that people seem to…forget about it in the holiday buzz. But hey- even I can't compete with Jesus, right?_

_It really makes me miss Claire though, even more than usual. She always, always remembered, because as she told me, "A birthday is supposed to be special. It's the one day of the year that belongs totally to you. And I swear, if I see another third cousin in evening gloves say 'Merry Christmas and oh, by the way,' I'm __seriously__ going to smack someone, Peter." _

_I've got Molly though. She's no replacement for Claire, but she's a nice bonus. She's always sincere about the birthday thing too. And on top of that, she's given me the ability to watch Claire whenever I want._

_So why haven't I used it yet?_

xxx

_And while we spoke of many things_

_fools and kings_

_This he said to me…_

_The greatest thing you'll ever learn_

_is just to love and be loved in return._

"Nature Boy" by David Bowie

xxx

Falling from the ceiling with a girl in his arms was just another day at work for Peter Petrelli. But as usual, such an event was rather uncommon for the aforementioned girl, and now his ears rang with screams in addition to the fractures in his spine.

"Geoff' me," Peter groaned, pushing on the trembling woman. A crowd of his comrades was already gathering around, pulling his latest damsel to safety. Only one person, Sylar, bothered to throw Peter himself a bone.

The young man sat up and shifted his shoulders, uncomfortably sensing all the vertebrates sliding back into place. Sylar offered his hand and Peter gratefully took it, using the momentum to pull himself off the ground.

"Need an ice pack?" Sylar asked, indicating his brother's back.

"Just for that burn," Peter cringed, glancing to the hysterical blonde he'd just saved, who insisted on throwing him looks of fear and disdain. "Guess she'll be rooming alone tonight, eh?"

Sylar's mouth curved into a tight smile that lacked sincerity. "I guess so."

He put an arm on Peter's shoulder and led him away in silence. "How did you end up teleporting to our ceiling?"

"Again, you mean?" Peter looked unabashed. "C'mon, _you_ try running through a firefight with a screaming woman and watching where you're going at the same time. I'm lucky I didn't teleport straight into a_ wall_."

Sylar chuckled. "Fair enough. I vow not to pick on you about it anymore…"

"Until next time." Peter dryly let out.

"Until next time. Naturally."

Peter rolled his eyes but still gave his brother a good-natured clap on the shoulder before sauntering off. Sylar smiled after him, and just when the moodier of the two was about to disappear into another room-

"Oh, and Peter? Happy Birthday!"

Peter turned around halfway and let his trademark crooked grin show through for the first time that day.

"Understatement of the year, brother."

xxx

"I'm never gonna get to go the store today," Niki moaned.

Sylar smirked far more lustfully than Niki had ever witnessed. "Caught me," he replied, not looking at her for fear of a blush.

She smacked him on the arm. "I give you too much credit. I thought you weren't the deceitful type."

He shrugged. "It's in there somewhere, trust me. A good deal of my grief comes from that nasty side."

Niki's body folded insecurely and she sensed that she had pinched a sensitive nerve. Though, she could kind of relate. Jessica was a more literally divide of her good and bad sides, but it still was similar.

Nevertheless, she chose to change the subject. It just wasn't the day for such a serious conversation.

"Whatever happened to that girl Peter saved? Did she just go away like the other ones?"

Sylar's eyebrows lowered a bit, resting over a pair of thoughtful brown eyes. Brown eyes that were now beginning to cloud with pained memory.

"No. She was actually rather signigicant. She was one of the first women to ever really talk to me."

Niki snorted. "Did she do it in little shrieks?"

Sylar laughed softly. "Contrary to everyone's first impression of her, Catherine was quite intelligent and interesting…"

xxx

It was uncommon for Sylar to hold conversations with the victims they saved, especially the women. He wasn't much of a people person, and always felt awkward around strangers, so he mostly kept his distance. But Catherine was impossible to turn away.

She had stumbled into his Batcave on accident. Literally. As in she dripped over the small step downward and ended up flat on her face. Sylar, though antisocial, was not heartless by any means, nor was he senile. So the lanky brunette was at her side with a rag in an instant, helping her off the ground.

"Sorry about that," he admitted. "I've been meaning to put a sign there that says 'Step Down' or something..."

There was a bit of blood on her lip, and Catherine gratefully took the rag from him to wipe it off. "Don't worry about it. It's totally my fault. I'm always running into stuff."

"You'd do well with a healing ability," Sylar grinned playfully.

"I would!" She agreed eagerly. Her face fell a bit, yet she still remained pretty nonchalant. "But I got stuck with ice."

Sylar lit up. "Cryokinisis? I can do that."

Catherine sat up straight, elation chiseled into her features. "Really? Here…"

She held out a fist and Sylar watched in fascination as her knuckles froze over with white. He awkwardly made a fist of his own and pressed it against hers, letting his own hand drop temperature and become laced with frost. He felt his stomach twist as soon as their cold skin touched, and it had nothing to do with their abilities.

"We're like the Wonder Twins," Catherine winked and Sylar nodded, even though he didn't get the joke.

Of course, Peter chose that exact moment to enter the room, having abandoned a trenchcoat and boots for sweatpants and a wifebeater. One eyebrow went up like a suspension bridge as he laid sight on Sylar and Catherine's welded fingers.

"Peter! I was looking for you," Catherine assured him with a smile, mentally undoing the bond between her and Sylar. She pulled her hand away briskly, leaving Sylar looking goofy with one lone fist still hanging in the air.

"I see you met my brother," Peter said emotionlessly, a hint of suspicion lacing his tone.

Catherine stood and brushed off her clothes. "Oh yeah, we were just playing around. We have the same power."

Peter stuck out a palm and conjured a small sphere of ice, which he let levitate towards the blonde woman. She caught it daintily, clearly impressed.

"Me too," Peter declared pointlessly, as if to justify what he'd just done.

Sylar's shoulders slumped, making his large frame suddenly feeble. With his eyes downcast, he couldn't see Catherine press a kiss against Peter's cheek, but he could _hear _it. The soft pressure of lips on skin.

Sylar closed his eyes and willed his super-hearing to shut down. But by the time he had his irritating ability under control, Peter and Catherine had already left, off to the den of bedsheets and sweat.

xxx

"I know her affection was pretty fake all along. She only wanted Peter once she calmed down. But she still counts to me."

Niki's blue eyes crinkled around the rims, exposing the thin "pushing fourty" wrinkles on her pale skin. Her fingers laced with Sylar's, as they had done so many times in an act of sympathy.

"Why wouldn't she count?" Niki agreed honestly.

Sylar shifted uncomfortably, but still kept his hand under hers. "Because I don't _want _her to mean anything. In hindsight I don't even think she took me seriously. I was just some puppy that was around while she went off and slept with the guy who actually _saved _her."

His resentment was so clear and thick that Niki could almost slice it with a knife. Tightening her grip on his digits, she leaned forward, almost _too _close.

"No one can tell you who should be important to you," she wisely remarked. "You have to decide for yourself."

The intimacy of the position didn't shy Sylar away. He stayed his ground and locked eyes with her, slowly craning his face forward.

"For what it's worth," Sylar said quietly. "You mean a lot to me too. Probably more than anyone I know."

Niki didn't respond with words. She merely smiled and brushed her nose against his, turning a delicate shade of pink. Sylar watched on in marvel as her eyes fell downward and her mouth curled up. She was humble and beautiful and he hadn't lied when he said she was important to him.

It's why then, on a couch in San Francisco at two in the afternoon, he finally kissed her.

xxx

_**December 24, 2011**_

_I usually don't remember the women I'm with. Well, sometimes, but mostly they just blur into one nice figure and pretty face. I can remember all their names, but not the faces. I'm sure it's up in my head somewhere with super-memory, but I don't care to pull it out._

_Last night though, I was with a girl named Catherine who'll probably haunt me for the rest of my life, super-abilities or no. It's not just what she looked like that was eerie. It's not just that her name began with a "C." It's that all she could seem to talk about was __love,__ and I'll never ever forget how much she made me regret leaving Claire. _

Xxx

**To be continued…**

**By the way, I've posted a trailer for the next story, Scourge, on Youtube. Just search for "rtwofan" or maybe "scourge fanfic trailer". Thanks!**


	10. The Mantelpiece

**Part Ten**

"**The Mantelpiece"**

xxx

_**April 10, 2013**_

_I didn't think there's much that scares me anymore. I've been shot, impaled, blown up…I've had to give up the woman I love, I've had to erase everything about my old life…_

_But Hiro went and I think, for the first time in a long time, I'm actually terrified._

_It took us a while to realize that he was gone, but when we did…it's been absolute chaos around the house for the past hour. I had to come up here and get away from it all for a while. I don't even want to imagine where the poor guy is, but Hiro's strong. He'll take care of himself until we can rescue him._

_I just…I save a __lot __of people, but they've all been strangers. Nothing about them really matter to me until after I save them. But now that it's my best friend out there, it feels really different. This is someone who's saved __me, __and not only do I feel indebted for that, but…I really do love Hiro to death. And Sylar and Molly, and all of them, and I don't know what I'd do if someone _did _something to any of..._

_Maybe fear and love are just two sides of the same coin. _

xxx

Sylar's fingers ran over the curvy scratches of ink in Peter's very last journal. April 10th. That was right before Peter rescued Hiro from the FBI and reunited with Claire. It was right before _everything. _

It was Peter's last entry before he died, and the start of many blank pages to fill out the rest of the unweathered journal. Sylar hadn't known Peter even kept one, and only now realized how secretive his brother's heart had been. He had passed off his gemini as self-absorbed and reckless at the time, but there were roots to all Peter's rotten apple trees. If only he _knew. _If only Peter had opened up a little more. If only Peter was still alive to accept Sylar's apologies.

But even though Sylar wished he could have helped Peter more, everything seemed to work out in the end. Peter _did _end up with Claire, even in death, and Sylar finally found a lover he could lean on. Through the ashes of tragedy emerged a bright ending to this one arc of their lives. Luckily, Sylar still had plenty of time to kill and things to learn, and it all started with him vowing never to take anything for granted. Plus,

reading Peter and Claire's journals felt like re-writing his past, having lots of other people's memories meandering around his head. Sometimes Sylar wondered what was actually his.

His mantelpiece would serve as a reminder. It looked almost shrine-like now, covered in mementos and receipts and pictures of long ago, random whos-its and whats-its that Sylar had been oblivious to when he actually lived in their times. And in center stage, in the exact median of Peter and Claire's urns, was the silver ring that Peter tried so hard to keep sacred. That had been Niki's idea, as she was the sentimental one between them. Angela Petrelli's engagement ring was ironically enough a symbol of their love and hardship, and it was only fitting to place it equal to Sylar's friends themselves.

At dusk every evening, though Sylar and Niki would usually be out to eat or strolling along the bay, sun nevertheless poured through the window panes and glinted off the sparkling urns, the picture frames. And Peter's silver ring would always jiggle just a bit, enough to be heard but not enough to draw any real attention. And even when Gabriel noticed, he passed it off as nothing more than fruitless imagination.

But it wasn't just in his head. In reality, the decorations on his mantelpiece were all waiting for a certain pair of heroes to rise again. Unfortunately, our dear amnesiac wouldn't realize as such until the following Christmas. But _that _remains to be another tale entirely…

xxx

_And I was there to catch his last breath. He spoke so eloquently.  
Said "Listen boy- the way it goes is up to you and you alone.  
To live your life in strength that's been passed on. Blood to blood."_

"I Believe" by Shadow Gallery

_**FIN**_

Yeah, I know, it's short, but I wanted to end it suspensfully ) Thanks to everyone for reading, and I hope to see you all for Scourge on June 2- two weeks!


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